NRHP Reference # 66000344 Area 79 ha Country United States of America Nearest city Ulysses | Designated NHL 19 December 1960 Year built 1820 Added to NRHP 15 October 1966 | |
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Similar Point of Rocks, Santa Fe Trail Center, Fort Larned National Historic S, El Quartelejo Ruins, Bent's Old Fort National | ||
Wagon Bed Spring (also Lower Spring or Lower Cimarron Spring), located in Grant County, Kansas, United States, was an important watering spot on the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail. The flow of the spring came from an outcropping of the Ogallala Formation. Center pivot irrigation adjacent to the spring resulted in lowering of the water table and the spring ceased to flow in the 1960s. A number of small artifacts dating from the days of the Santa Fe Trail have been recovered from lands near the spring which were used by both American Indians and wagon trains as a campground. The name "wagon bed" dates from later use of an old wagon bed as a trough to collect water from the spring. There is a foundation on the site of an ice house. Floods have changed the course of the Cimarron River; the site of the spring is now in the bed of the river rather than on its bank as it was in the days of the Santa Fe Trail.
Map of Wagon Bed Spring, Sullivan, KS, USA
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1961.
It is located about 12 miles (19 km) south of Ulysses, on the west side of US 270.