Seven Wells

This area, now covered by Lake Champion, was once the site of springs that originated from underground water which also supplied Champion Creek. They were called "wells" because the Seven Spring Basins closely resembled man-made wells. Buffalo tracks cut deep into the creek banks of soft sandstone indicated this was a watering place for great herds of bison. At least four trails crisscrossed the area where north and south Champion Creeks converged. For hundreds of years Indians also camped here, and in the 1880s a small, early Mitchell County settlement named "Artesia" grew up at the site of the wells.

(1968).