Life on the Plains

Luke Henry was born and raised on the Henry family ranch in southwestern Kansas which had been homesteaded by his grandfather Lee Henry in 1860 prior to the war between the states. Fort Dodge was established five years later to provide a military base for the troops engaged in the protection of wagon trains coming from the east on the Santa Fe Trail. The Indians of the plains tribes which included the Cheyenne and Kiowa had been disrupting the wagon train migration from the east. Grandpa Lee Henry and his family were one of those wagons coming from Ohio, looking for opportunity and a better life in the west than they had experienced in Ohio on the family farm. Luke was the third generation of Henrys to live on the ranch, and this is his story.