Lake Scott State Park
Lake Scott State Park is the site of a ruined Taos Pueblo. The Taos arrived in western Kansas in 1664. After having escaped the Spanish colonial rule in New Mexico. They formed an alliance with a group of Plains Apache. The Taos Indians built the protective pueblos and an irrigation system from a nearby spring to water their crops. The settlement, known as El Cuartelejo, was occupied for 20 years before the builders returned to their home territory. The pueblo was reoccupied in 1696 by a group of Picuri Indians. The Picuris were compelled to retreat to their homelands in colonial New Mexico ten years later.
Pueblo Grande Ruin and Irrigation Sites
Pueblo Grande was occupied from approximately A.D. 450 to 1450, at which time it was abandoned like many other villages throughout the Phoenix basin. The reasons why these ancestral Native Americans left their villages and irrigation systems are widely debated among archaeologists. There are many competing hypotheses that include floods, droughts, warfare, and disease.