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.
Antelope Creek phase
The Antelope Creek people grew corn, beans, squash and probably sunflowers. The Texas Panhandle is a marginal area for unirrigated agriculture, prone to drought and with the bulk of the 16- to 20-inch annual rainfall coming in a few thunderstorms that cause flooding. Thus, the Antelope Creek people probably practiced water harvesting or “Ak-Chin” dryland farming techniques. Crops were planted in arroyos or other depressions which caught runoff from thunderstorms and preserved enough moisture to permit crops to grow and mature. Given the unpredictability of rainfall, a family probably planted small fields – as did other Southwestern peoples—in several different micro-environments with the objective of maximizing the possibility that some of their fields would be productive. In their farming, the Antelope Creek people used bone-tipped digging sticks and bison scapulas as shovels and hoes.