Mount Oread is a hill in

Lawrence, Kansas Lawrence is a city in and the county seat of 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 in Kansas, Interstate 70, between the Kansas River ...

, 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. Two branch campuses are in the Kansas City metropolitan area on the Kansas side: the university's medical school and hospital ...

, and parts of the city of Lawrence, Kansas, 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 single ...

between the

Kansas River The Kansas River, also known as the Kaw, is a meandering river in northeastern Kansas in the United States. It is potentially the southwestern most part of the Missouri River drainage, which is sometimes in turn the northwesternmost portion of ...

and the Wakarusa River. It was named after the long defunct Oread Institute in

Worcester, Massachusetts Worcester ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Massachusetts, second-most populous city in the U.S. state of Massachusetts and the list of United States cities by population, 113th most populous city in the United States. Named after Worcester ...

, 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 television series that aired for eight seasons, first on the NBC television network (1957–1962) and then on ABC (1962–1965). ''Wagon Train'' debuted on September 18, 1957, and reached the top of the ...

on the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and Westward Expansion Trails, emigrant trail in North America that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon Territory. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail crossed 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 landforms and features themselves, or a description or depiction in maps. Topography is a field of geoscience and planetary scienc ...

challenge after crossing the Wakarusa River at Blue Jacket's Crossing, which is today located southeast 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 21, 1855, by pro-slavery border ruffians. The Oread Hotel Lawrence Nima 13

According to the

United States Geological Survey The United States Geological Survey (USGS), founded as the Geological Survey, is an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior whose work spans the disciplines of biology, geography, geology, and hydrology. The agency was founded on Mar ...

, Mount Oread is located approximately above

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

. 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 (; redundant array of inexpensive disks or redundant array of independent disks) is a data storage virtualization technology that combines multiple physical Computer data storage, data storage components into one or more logical units for th ...

into Lawrence on August 21, 1863, during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. 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. Due to the similarity, the term '' scarp'' may mistakenly be incorrectly used inte ...

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 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