Rock City

Rock City is a park located on hillsides overlooking the Solomon River in Ottawa County, Kansas. It is 3.6 miles south of Minneapolis, Kansas and just over 0.5 mile west of Kansas highway K-106 and the Minneapolis City County Airport on Ivy Road. In a patch of prairie about 500 meters (1600 feet) long and 40 meters (130 feet) wide, Rock City contains three clusters of large spherical boulders. These three clusters contain a total of 200 spherical boulders. It has been designated as a National Natural Landmark. The park, owned by a non-profit corporation, has a visitor center and picnic tables. A small admission fee, which is used to maintain this park, is charged. The remarkable size and spherical shape of these rock formation was first noted by Bell. Later, these boulders were either noted or described by Gould, Landes, Shaffer, Ward, and Swineford. Shaffer was the first person to map the distribution of these boulders at Rock City and investigate their petrography in detail.