Nebraska State Historical Society
Date of this Version
1887
Abstract
When, a few years since, a paper was read before this society,* containing some reasonable grounds for belief in the theory that Coronado, in his expedition to the mysterious kingdom of Quivira, reached the territory now embraced within the state of Nebraska, there was little foundation for an argument that the gallant and uxorious knight marched any considerable distance beyond its southern boundary. The relation of his patient and painstaking follower, Castaneda, and his own report, left him at the fortieth parallel of latitude, now the dividing line between the states of Kansas and Nebraska; and the only reason for supposing him to have prolonged his journey farther to the north was the difficulty of believing that so adventurous a soldier would have turned back until he was stopped by some natural obstacle at least as formidable as the Platte or the Republican river. From the sources of information then at hand therefore, the author of that essay, while, suggesting that he may have reached the Platte, was inclined to place Quivira south of that stream, and somewhere between Gage county, in this state, on the east, and Furnas on the west.
Comments
Published in TRANSACTIONS AND REPORTS OF THE NEBRASKA HISTORICAL SOCIETY, vol. 2 (Lincoln, NE, 1887).