The Ghost of White Woman Creek

The “White Woman Creek” winds it way through Greeley, Wichita, and Scott counties in western Kansas. Legend states this creek got its name because of a Cheyenne Indian attack that happened in the late 1860s. Others state the creek was actually named after an incident where Indians kidnapped a white woman in the 1870’s. These two stories are both tragic but regardless of which tale earned the creek its name—there is one thing about White Woman Creek, which is not in doubt—this area is haunted.

This creeks abundant underground water was one feature that made this area in Kansas attractive to the early white settlers. The local southern native Cheyenne Indians who stopped to water their horses in the creeks’ springs and pools also used this creek as their main source of water. This fact alone guaranteed these two cultures would eventually clash.

In the late 1860s a group of Cheyenne warriors attacked an isolated western settlement in retaliation against the white men who had raided their camp recently. After these Indians killed several men in the settlement they reclaimed items that had been stolen from their camp. As they left they kidnapped 10 men and 2 women from the settlement. After several months had passed the two white women adopted this Indian tribe as their own. One of them even married the chief and bore him a son. Of the ten white men nine adopted the ways of their captors but the tenth man remained restless, after a year had passed he stole an Indian horse and left.

This tenth man managed to reach Fort Wallace where he convinced the army that the remaining captives were being held against their will. This man then led a detachment of soldiers from this fort back to the Cheyenne Indian camp. They attacked in the early morning, killing the chief and his infant son. The chief's Anglo wife then retaliated by killing the man who had lied to the soldiers. She continued to fight alongside her adopted Indian family and was killed by the soldiers.

The second tale that is told happened in the 1870s. An Indian war party was activity attacking white homesteads along the creek when they ran into an army ambulance. These Indians promptly tortured and killed the white soldiers and took the one white woman hostage. That night as these Indians made camp along the creek this woman still in shock from seeing her army escorts tortured and killed feared for her own fate. It is said she stole a rope from one of the horses and headed toward the creek. Before her captors could prevent it she hung herself from a tree that stood near the creek.

This is an unusual sight
today for the creek
is normally dry.

Since the late 1800s many witnesses have seen and heard a ghostly spirit along the White Woman Creek basin. On moonlit nights people have reported seeing a woman running along the now dry creek bed. Others have seen a similar figure wandering slowly near this old stream bed. Many more witnesses report hearing a woman’s voice singing a sad song—in the Cheyenne language.