The Custer Elm

This spot near Council Grove honors the Custer Elm, a great spreading tree that once stood guard over the Santa Fe Trail. According to local memory, General George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry camped in the shade of this elm while patrolling the trail. The tree itself long outlived the general, becoming a beloved landmark and a living link to the era of wagon trains rolling west toward Santa Fe. The elm is remembered here as a reminder that this quiet corner of the Flint Hills once lay astride one of the most important commercial highways in the history of the American West.