WICHITA

city, seat of Sedgwick County, south central Kansas, U.S., on the Arkansas River near the mouth of the Little Arkansas. Founded in 1864 as a trading post on the site of a village of the Wichita Indians, it owed its early development to the Texas cattle trade along the Chisholm Trail and to the rapid spread of agricultural settlement along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, then under construction. In its early years Wichita was a stopover on cattle drives to Abilene and other points as the railroad moved west; in 1872 the line reached Wichita, and the city became a major cattle-shipping centre. By 1875 farmers' fences obstructed the movement of beef herds, but grain became an important commodity. The major economic activities of Wichita are aircraft construction, oil refining, grain processing and storage, and livestock marketing. Wichita is the home of Friends University (1898), Kansas Newman College (formerly Sacred Heart College, 1933), and Wichita State University (1895). McConnell Air Force Base is nearby. Mid Continent Airport, 6 miles (10 km) west, is the headquarters of the International Flying Farmers. The restored Cow Town is a replica of Wichita in the 1870s. Inc. city, 1871. Pop. (1990) city, 304,011; Wichita MSA, 485,270. North American Indian people of Caddoan linguistic stock who in their early history lived near the Arkansas River in present-day Kansas. They were encountered by the Spanish in the mid-16th century and became the object of the earliest missionary work done among the Plains Indians. Like most Caddoans, the Wichita subsisted largely by farming (corn , pumpkins, and tobacco) but also hunted buffalo. They lived in conical communal lodges resembling haystacks and constructed of poles and thatch; on hunting expeditions they used skin tepees. More given to tattooing than most Plains Indians, they were known by other groups as the tattooed people. They performed a ceremonial dance resembling the green corn festivals of the southeastern tribes. In the late 18th century the Wichita moved south, probably under pressure from hostile tribes in the north. By 1772 they were located near what is now Wichita Falls, Texas. During the Civil War they relocated in Kansas, and in 1867 they were removed to a reservation in Oklahoma. Their estimated population in 1780 was 3,200; in the late 20th century they numbered about 500.