One hundred seventy-five years ago, Santa Fe Trail travelers standing here looked out over a sea of grass. About three miles to the south, a line of timber marked the Arkansas River as it meandered across the prairie. A few plum thickets dotted the landscape, and occasional thin lines of trees traced the course of feeder streams, but otherwise almost all that met the eye was grass and sky. On July 8, 1846, Private Jacob S. Robinson, from the top of Pawnee Rock, saw one vast herd of buffaloes spread far over the plain to the west and north, some in column marching in their trails and others carelessly grazing, until the prairie in the dim distance became one black mass extending to the horizon.