Mount Oread is a hill in

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is the county seat of Douglas County, Kansas, Douglas County, Kansas, United States, and the sixth-largest city in the state. It is in the northeastern sector of the state, astride Interstate 70, between the Kansas River, Kansas and Waka ...

upon which the

University of Kansas The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university with its main campus in Lawrence, Kansas, United States, and several satellite campuses, research and educational centers, medical centers, and classes across the state of Kansas. Tw ...

, and parts of the city of

are located. It sits on the

water divide A drainage divide, water divide, ridgeline, watershed, water parting or height of land is elevated terrain that separates neighboring drainage basins. On rugged land, the divide lies along topographical ridges, and may be in the form of a singl ...

between the

Kansas River The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is the southwesternmost part of the Missouri River drainage, which is in turn the northwesternmost portion of the extensive Mississippi River dr ...

and the

Wakarusa River The Wakarusa River is a tributary of the Kansas River, approximately long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed March 30, 2011 in eastern Kansas in the United States. It drains ...

rivers. It was named after the long defunct

Oread Institute The Oread Institute was a women's college founded in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1849 by Eli Thayer. Before its closing in 1934, it was one of the oldest institutions of higher education for women in the United States. According to the ''Worcester ...

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is a city and county seat of Worcester County, Massachusetts, United States. Named after Worcester, England, the city's population was 206,518 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the second-List of cities i ...

, where many of the settlers of Lawrence moved from prior to the American Civil War. The hill was originally called Hogback Ridge by many Lawrence residents until the Oread name was adopted in 1864, two years after the university was founded. For settlers going westward by

wagon train ''Wagon Train'' is an American Western series that aired 8 seasons: first on the NBC television network (1957–1962), and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and became number one in the Nielsen ratings. It ...

on the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what ...

, "The Hill", as Mount Oread is now commonly referred to by Kansans, was the next big

topographical Topography is the study of the forms and features of land surfaces. The topography of an area may refer to the land forms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary sci ...

challenge after crossing the

, which is today located two miles south of the city of Lawrence. James Lane and Governor Charles Robinson erected a fort on the hill in the 1850s, during the

Bleeding Kansas Bleeding Kansas, Bloody Kansas, or the Border War was a series of violent civil confrontations in Kansas Territory, and to a lesser extent in western Missouri, between 1854 and 1859. It emerged from a political and ideological debate over the ...

conflict in order to protect Lawrence. A 1857 ''Harper's Weekly'' report deemed the fort to be valueless as a military work. Governor Robinson's first home in Lawrence would be built on the hill, which was burned down on May 21st, 1855 by pro-slavery

border ruffians Border ruffians were proslavery raiders, crossing from the slave state of Missouri into the Kansas Territory, to help ensure Kansas entered the Union as a slave state. They were a key part of the violent period called Bleeding Kansas, that pea ...

According to the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), formerly simply known as the Geological Survey, is a scientific agency of the United States government. The scientists of the USGS study the landscape of the United States, its natural resources, ...

, Mount Oread is located approximately above

sea level Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardised g ...

. By way of comparison, downtown Lawrence is about above sea level. Mount Oread is perhaps best known for being the staging area of William Quantrill's

raid Raid, RAID or Raids may refer to: Attack * Raid (military), a sudden attack behind the enemy's lines without the intention of holding ground * Corporate raid, a type of hostile takeover in business * Panty raid, a prankish raid by male college ...

into Lawrence on August 21, 1863, during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

. Presently, the campus of the

(KU) rests on Mount Oread. Mount Oread is the type locality for the Oread Limestone, and so, gives its name to the Oread

Escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''escar ...

rising in this region of Kansas. Oread Limestone was quarried from the hilltop and used in the earliest of the campus buildings of KU, including

Spooner Hall Spooner Hall was built in 1893-94 as the University of Kansas' first library building. The Richardsonian Romanesque structure was designed by architect Henry Van Brunt and built with funds bequeathed by William B. Spooner, a Massachusetts leather ...

and Dyche Hall.

References

External links

Lawrence Kansas looking northeast from Mt. Oread
(1859)
Mt. Oread campus buildings
at the

.
TopoQuest map of Mt. Oread

trail route marker for ''KU GIS Day 2006'' social geocoding pioneers Bleeding Kansas Lawrence, Kansas Hills of Kansas Kansas in the American Civil War Hydrology Oregon Trail Drainage divides Landforms of Douglas County, Kansas {{DouglasCountyKS-geo-stub

See also

References

External links