In the summer of 1927, GC Wilkins, his wife Ora Roddy Wilkins and their four daughters, Mary 15, Jo 8, June 3 and Jane 14 mos. made a visit to Pawnee Rock Kansas. Pawnee Rock is a historic landmark on the Santa Fe Trail in present-day Barton County, Kansas. Located in the county’s southwest corner, the bluff, comprised of Dakota Sandstone, sits about 100 yards from the old Santa Fe Trail. Before this road was blazed, the large rock formation, rising out of the flat prairie, was a site where the Comanche, Kiowa, Arapaho, and Cheyenne  Indians held councils of war and peace. In 1908, the remaining portion of the bluff was acquired by the Woman’s Kansas Day Club, and the next year it was turned over to the State of Kansas as a historic site. On May 24, 1912, a stone monument was dedicated with a great celebration before a crowd of some eight thousand onlookers. The state park today provides a road that leads to a shelter house and monument on the summit. An overlook, monument, and historical signs now grace its reduced summit, where visitors can stand, witnessing the view that so many throughout history have shared. The site is open from sunrise to sunset.