Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
This national historic site preserves the landscape where U.S. volunteer cavalry attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho village in 1864. Begin at the visitor contact area and read the tribal accounts before walking toward the overlook; silence and distance are part of the interpretation.
Artwork inspired by Allen Tupper True
Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site is a National Historic Site in Kiowa County, Colorado, commemorating the Sand Creek massacre that occurred here on November 29, 1864. The site is considered sacred after the unprovoked assault on an encampment of approximately 750 Native people resulted in the murder of hundreds of men, women and children. Near Eads and Chivington, the site is about 170 miles (270 km) southeast of Denver and about 125 miles (200 km) east of Pueblo.
Begin at the visitor contact area and read the tribal accounts before walking toward the overlook; silence and distance are part of the interpretation. Use the word massacre, learn the names of affected families, and resist reducing the place to a military engagement or a brief prelude to later wars.
- Setting
- Massacre landscape and descendant memory
- Plan around
- Remote, exposed prairie site
- Allow
- 1½–2 hours
Quick guide
- Primary evidence
- Colorado history held in place
- Do not omit
- the surviving material, chronology, and later interpretation
Build an evidence-led visit to Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site
- Begin
- Begin with the visitor contact station
- Notice
- Read testimony before walking the overlook
- Remember
- Center Cheyenne and Arapaho families; call the event a massacre.
- Prepare
- Bring context and supplies to this remote, exposed memorial landscape.
Good to know
If time contracts at Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site, keep the comparison between “Colorado history held in place” and “the surrounding setting in Eads, Colorado” and remove peripheral stops from the route.
Notice these
- This national historic site preserves the landscape where U.S. volunteer cavalry attacked a Cheyenne and Arapaho village in 1864.
- Use the word massacre, learn the names of affected families, and resist reducing the place to a military engagement or a brief prelude to later wars.