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At first glance, Burnett’s Mound just looks like a gorgeously scenic spot with sweeping views overlooking the city of Topeka, Kansas.
As the city’s highest natural point of elevation, it has plentiful trails and beautiful vegetation. But it’s also rumored to be a Native American burial ground that was once thought to protect the city from tornados.
The mythology of Burnett’s Mound
This local legend originates from a holy man of the Potawatomi tribe named Wis-Ki-Ge-Amatyuk, who lived around the turn of the 20th century.
As the story goes, a horrible storm on the prairie killed and injured a number of tribal members. Seven of the victims were allegedly directly related to Chief Abram Burnett, the leader after whom the mound was named.
Supposedly, the tribe spent days praying and preparing for this massive burial ceremony in the “shadow” of the mound — and that’s when they decided to try and prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.
They asked the “Great Spirit” to bless the mound with the ability “to stop the powerful spinning winds,” watch over the dead that had been laid to rest there, and protect the community that survived.
And so the mound stood until 1960, when the city cut into its north side to construct a water tank. More development followed in the following years.
So was it a coincidence that just six years later, an infamous tornado ripped through the town?
The 1966 Topeka Tornado
On June 8, 1966, one of the most lethal and catastrophic tornadoes in Kansas history touched down in Topeka.
On that day, Bill Kurtis was anchoring the news at the local TV station, WIBW. You might now know him as the announcer for NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me!” But in 1966, he was merely a law student at Topeka’s Washburn University and an occasional fill-in newscaster.
Kurtis still remembers the moment of disbelief when he first heard there was an F5 twister on the ground. At one point, the tornado was heading straight towards Washburn, where Kurtis’ wife and six-month-old daughter were.
Because Topeka had gotten so many tornado warnings that spring, many residents simply shrugged it off and continued with their day, despite the looming danger.
“Well, here's the dilemma,” Kurtis told KCUR's Up To Date. “What do you say to get people into the shelter to save their lives? I thought about crying and shouting and cussing and all in a fraction of a second.”
In a moment of desperation, Kurtis told viewers, “For God’s sake, take cover!”
It was a decision that likely saved many lives, and ended up launching his career as a journalist.
Not everyone was as lucky that day, though. The 1966 Topeka tornado killed 17 people, injured more than 500 people and caused $2.3 billion in damage.
Adjusted for 2023 inflation, that makes it one of the nation’s costliest tornadoes.
Rita Bennett, who was about 10 at the time, was in a car with her family driving back to their house when the sirens went off. They scrambled into the basement, taking shelter underneath tables. She remembers desperately grasping for her father’s hand, who was just out of reach, and the deafening sound of the tornado.
“It was just the most awful sound I think I've ever heard,” Bennett told KCUR earlier this year. “Our house had been picked up from the foundation and moved, and then dropped where the garage used to be.”
Is there any truth to the myth?
When the 1966 tornado initially hit, a lot of folks felt that it disproved the protections of Burnett’s Mound. Some locals like Bennett, however, wonder if this incident actually reinforces the myth.
“I just know that Chief Burnett had always said, ‘The mound will protect your city. You protect the mound and it will protect you,’” Bennett says. “But then they went and cut it down.”
Nearly six decades after the tornado, Bennett wonders if things might have played out differently had the water tower never been built.
“It was karma,” she says. “If you're a person who believes in legends and stuff, I often wonder, would we have been okay?”
This episode of A People's History of Kansas City was produced and mixed by Mackenzie Martin. It includes reporting by Maya Cederlund and an interview from KCUR’s Up To Date. Editing by Suzanne Hogan and Gabe Rosenberg.
