The French Colony of the Cottonwood Valley

Abstract

For many years people have referred to a "lost" French colony in the Cottonwood River valley, at the Western edge of the Kansas Flint Hills. Its first immigrants were French, and they called the settlement a "colony." It is no more "lost," however, than other foreign settlements in Kansas. Some imposing granite grave stones, a few crumbling foundations, names of places, folklore, and a handful of descendants keep the memory of the French.speaking community alive.