The farming, oil-drilling, and salt-mining town of Lyons (pop. 3,732), 30 miles due east of Great Bend, doesn’t look much different from most other Kansas towns, but it has an unusually impressive history—and a very nice courthouse square downtown. There’s a 150-foot-long intaglio serpent carved into the prairie eight miles northeast of town, and some Santa Fe Trail ruts, but the most compelling remains are those left behind by Coronado’s expedition through the region in 1541, in search of the fabled Golden City of Quivira. Exhibits on all of these, as well as on Indian and pioneer American cultures, are displayed inside the modern, purpose-built Coronado-Quivira Museum (daily; $2; 620/257-3941) at 105 W. Lyon Street, two blocks south of the landmark county courthouse off US-56.
Two miles west of Lyons along US-56, a large cross marks the site where Father Padilla, who accompanied Coronado on his expedition and returned the following year to convert the natives, was killed by unreceptive Indians, thereby becoming the first “Christian martyr” in the present-day United States.
For a place to stay, try the Lyons Inn ($40; 620/257-5185), on US-56 at 817 W. Main Street.
