Metal-Satanta Copper Laser-Cut Pendant TB

I maintain records on my trackables. They have the goal to circulate more than five years and to be moved by at least 25 cachers. That is a target rate of five drops per year for five years, or a drop every 73 days. The average drop rate of my trackables in the US is 124 days, in Europe it is 71 days. As of 28-Aug-23 this trackable had survived for 2.3 years and had been moved by 4 cachers, for an average drop every 214 days. Please keep it moving, then drop it in a safe place!

No permission is needed to leave the U.S. While in the U.S., please drop it in a Premium Member only OR a rural cache near a busy trail or road. Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event where there is no security. Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean and dry, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items. Otherwise, take the trackable anywhere you wish.

While I have lived in Texas for nearly 50 years, I was born and grew to an adult in Kansas. When I tell someone of my origins, they almost always respond in one of two ways: “I have been there but I don’t remember much about it” or “that 400 mile drive across the state on Interstate 70 is really boring.” There is more to the state than that. The wheat grown there feeds the world, and the people are really nice.

Kansas achieved statehood in 1861, but it was far from civilized. From 1850 until 1900 the region was a frontier, and at the center of important events in US history: there was the westward movement of pioneers from Europe and the eastern US and the subsequent conflicts with Native Americans; the Santa Fe Trail crossed the state and the Pony Express and the Oregon Trail passed through a corner; there was a border war because Kansas was a free state and a center of the abolitionist movement, whereas neighboring Missouri was a slave state; and finally the several new railroads were extending westward into hostile territory and furthermore some of the railheads were the destinations of cattle drives from Texas. Each trackable in this series of metal travel bugs is named for towns with interesting histories (at least to me), some of which have connections to my youth.

Satanta is a town of 1,100 people in Haskell County. The town is named after Satanta (ca. 1820-1878) who was a Kiowa war chief. Every year there is a celebration of Satanta's Indian heritage called Satanta Day.

Satanta was born during the height of the power of the Plains Tribes, probably near the Canadian River in the traditional winter camp grounds of his people. He developed a reputation as an outstanding warrior and in his twenties was made a sub-chief of his tribe, under Dohäsan, as Chief. He fought with him at the First Battle of Adobe Walls in the Texas Panhandle. He earned enduring fame for his use of a captured army bugle to confuse the troops in battle.

My only connections to the town are that I could see the distant water tower and grain elevator from the highway, on the way from Texas to my home town on further north. That, and several college friends who could cite chapter and verse about school basketball and football games with rival Sublette.