In the spring of 1541, Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, with 36 soldiers and Father Juan de Padilla, marched north from the Rio Grande valley seeking Quivira, which Spaniards had been told was a fabulously wealthy kingdom where gold was commonplace. In June the expedition entered the Arkansas River area in what is now Rice and McPherson counties, but found no gold, only the grass lodges of the Quiviran Indians, and the guide who had misled Coronado was killed. After more than a month exploring central Kansas, the expedition returned to the Southwest, disappointed in its search for riches but favorably impressed by the land, which Juan Jaramillo, Coronado's lieutenant, praised as a country of table-lands, plains, and charming rivers that he believed would be very productive. According to legend, Seymour S. Rogers, the first settler here in the mid-1880s, was said to have been mighty liberal with water from his well, and from this came the name of the city established here in 1888.