One mile south stood a hand-dug well that served the U.S. Cavalry and Santa Fe Trail travelers in the 1860s. For five days in July 1864, 600 Indians besieged a trading post near the well and a nearby wagon train. When the attackers tried to overrun the post, "Buffalo Bill" Mathewson fired a field cannon into the midst of several on horseback and afoot, ending the siege. A later "Buffalo Bill," William F. Cody, worked at the site briefly before moving in 1867 to Ellsworth, where he gained the cognomen by killing buffalo for railroad workers.