Long before white settlement in Kansas, this region was the home of the Pawnee Indians. French traders in the late 1700's named those along this river the Republican Pawnee in the mistaken belief that their form of government was a republic, and from them the Republican River and in turn Republic County and city took their names. Along the east side of the river passed the military road opened in 1857 to connect Fort Riley and Fort Kearny, Neb. White settlement began here in the early 1860's, and in 1868 the Scandinavian Agricultural Society of Chicago started a colony at this place that became Scandia. Fearful of Indian attacks, because several occurred nearby, the settlers constructed a stronghold near the river called Colony House. In January, 1826, Jedediah Smith, famed mountain man, explorer, and mapper of the American West, led 60 men up the Republican Valley and stayed several weeks at a Republican Pawnee village, probably the one four miles west and eight north of this place. The site of this village has been preserved by the state, and a modern archeological museum was opened there in 1967.