To celebrate its 100^th anniversary, the National Park Service has launched the Find Your Park campaign. The Park Service is inviting Americans to discover parks near them. With this in mind, Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site (NHS) in southeastern Colorado has partnered with Washita Battlefield National Historic Site (NHS) in western Oklahoma to link two national parks that share common bonds of turmoil and suffering, sadness and hope, death and survival.

On Saturday, April 23, 2016 join Washita Battlefield NHS Park Ranger Barbara Ford at the Crow-Luther Cultural Events Center in Eads, for a free presentation titled “Why Washita?: 20 Years of Washita Battlefield.”  The program starts at 5:00 pm.

In 1868, four years after the bloody massacre of over 230 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians at Sand Creek, Cheyenne Peace Chief Black Kettle and other survivors camped on the banks of the Washita River. In a dawn attack, reminiscent of Sand Creek, Lt. Col. George A. Custer and soldiers of the 7^th Cavalry and their Indian allies attacked the village in a tragic event that would be known as the “Battle of the Washita.”

Separated by 400 miles, both the Sand Creek Massacre NHS and the Washita Battlefield NHS are sacred places to the Cheyenne people and sites of conscience for all Americans. We invite you to discover why.

For additional information, please call the park at 719-729-3003 (Monday through Friday, 10 am to 4 pm) or visit www.nps.gov/sand.

Photo: NPS/Steven Lang