Sand Creek Massacre Special Study: Analysis of Aerial Photography from 1936-37, 1954, and 1975 (Draft Report)
Ireland AK and National Park Service - Santa Fe Support Office. 1999. Sand Creek Massacre Special Study: Analysis of Aerial Photography from 1936-37, 1954, and 1975 (Draft Report). Santa Fe, NM
The purpose of the interpretation of the aerial photographic record for the area around where the Sand Creek Massacre (Figure 1) was reported to have taken place was not to locate the actual massacre site, which is ephemeral at best but rather to try to locate other features, such as aboriginal trails or wagon roads, that might have been related to the massacre or the Cheyenne and Arapaho village itself. Such trails are not unknown. The Chaco roads are one example. Another case in point was investigations done jointly by researchers at the University of North Dakota and the National Park Services Southwest Cultural Resources Center and Midwest Archeological Center on the Bad Pass Trail on the west rim of Bighorn Canyon at Bighom Canyon National Recreation Area on the Wyoming/Montana border. This trail has been suggested to have been travois trail and grooves created by the horses hooves and travois poles were still visible on the ground at the time the research was being done, which was 1971-1972. In the area around Fort Lyons and Bents New Fort, west of Lamar, the Santa Fe Trail is clearly visible in the aerial photography.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Ireland, Arthur; National Park Service - Santa Fe Support Office
- Date of Issue
- 1999
- Units
- SAND
- Keywords
- Aerial Photography, anomalies, Imagery, special study location, Statistics