Editing Meade County, Kansas (section)

==History==
{{See also|History of Kansas}}
For millennia, the [[Great Plains]] of North America were inhabited by [[nomad]]ic [[Native Americans in the United States|Native Americans]].

In 1854, the [[Kansas Territory]] was organized, then in 1861 [[Kansas]] became the 34th [[U.S. state]].

In 1873, Meade County was established. The first permanent settlement in the county was established in 1878 at Meade City, 12 miles north of the city of Meade. Pearlette was settled shortly thereafter in 1879 by a company of sixteen families from [[Zanesville, Ohio]] led by John Jobling.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Sullivan |first=Frank |url=https://archive.org/details/historyofmeadeco00sull |title=A History of Meade County, Kansas |year=1916 |isbn=978-1104594145 |pages=21}}</ref> The railroad first entered the country in 1887, ending a decade in which supplies had to be hauled from Dodge City.<ref name=":1" />

On August 24, 1874, in Meade County, [[Mochi (Cheyenne)|Mochi]], Medicine Water, and the other members of their band of [[Cheyenne]] massacred a surveying party led by Capt. Oliver Francis Short, who had fought in the Union Army during the American Civil War. This event became known as the Lone Tree Massacre. Short, his 14-year-old son Truman, and four other members of the party were killed, with three of them being scalped.<ref name="KHQ1932">{{Cite journal |last=Montgomery |first=F.C. |date=May 1932 |title=United States Surveyors Massacred by Indians |url=http://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly-united-states-surveyors-massacred-by-indians/12546 |journal=Kansas Historical Quarterly |publisher=[[Kansas Historical Society]] |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=266–272 |mode=cs2 |accessdate=April 21, 2011}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Meade County, Kansas - Kansapedia - Kansas Historical Society |url=https://www.kshs.org/kansapedia/meade-county-kansas/15315 |access-date=September 27, 2023 |website=www.kshs.org}}</ref>

Meade County became known as a hotbed of thievery and cattle rustling in the 1880s and 1890s. Eva Dalton Whipple lived with her husband in Meade County and allowed her house to be used as a hide for her brothers, the infamous Dalton Gang. The [[Dalton Gang Hideout and Museum]] was restored by the [[Works Progress Administration|WPA]] in the 1930s and today is on the National Register of Historic Places.<ref name=":0"/>

A large sinkhole filled with saltwater, known as the Salt Well, appeared in the county on March 16, 1879. William Sturgis first produced commercial solar salt from the Salt Well in 1880, and floating in its salty water was a tourist attraction at the turn of the 20th century.<ref>Sullivan, Frank (1916). ''A History of Meade County, Kansas''. p.&nbsp;98. {{ISBN|978-1104594145}}.</ref>

Like the rest of southwestern Kansas, Meade County was devastated by the [[Dust Bowl]] in the 1930s.<ref name=":0" />