Etzanoa Presentation

Join us for a presentation by Sandy Randel on Eztanoa. In June 2015, archaeologist Dr. Don Blakeslee led a wide-ranging field study in Central and Southern Kansas. One of his primary goals was to re-discover the long-lost city of Etzanoa. The location, size and significance of Etzanoa, “the Great Settlement,” as Spanish explorers labeled it after their 1601 expedition there, had become lost in the mists of time. For many decades archaeologists debated these issues. But in recent years, Wichita State University anthropology and archaeology professor Dr. Blakeslee became convinced that the town inhabited by 20,000 ancestral Wichita Indians — the second-largest, or perhaps the largest, settlement in North America in the early 1600s — was hidden in plain site. It was in Arkansas City, Kansas. Tickets are $5 for non-members (free for museum members).