photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Crews wrap the Kaw Nation's prayer rock in downtown Lawrence Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, in preparation for its move later this month to Council Grove.

Updated at 1:53 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 15

Construction crews worked Tuesday morning in Robinson Park wrapping a 28-ton red quartzite boulder that is sacred to the Kaw Nation, attaching it to a crane and lifting it from the base where it has rested for nearly a century.

The rock was moved from the base of smaller rocks shortly before 11 a.m. as onlookers, some of them singing and playing instruments in celebration, gathered at the small downtown park across from Lawrence City Hall.

One of the workers at the site, which has been fenced off, said it was rather “amazing” how the rock sat on the base with no mechanical attachment.

“Some mortar,” said Paul Schultz with Belger Cartage Service, “but really, it was just sitting on its base.”

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The red prayer boulder is shown Tuesday morning, Aug. 15, 2023, being lifted from its base at Robinson Park.

The City of Lawrence is returning the rock, known as Iⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe, to its Indigenous owners. At the end of the month, the rock will be moved to Allegawaho Heritage Memorial Park in Council Grove, which is owned by the Kaw Nation, as the Journal-World has reported. There, it will join other monuments to Kaw heritage.

The rock originally sat at the confluence of the Kansas River and Shunganunga Creek in Tecumseh before being moved to Lawrence in 1929 and adorned with a plaque to honor the city’s white settlers.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Staff members with the Sacred Red Rock Project look on Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, at Robinson Park as crews wrap the prayer rock and attach it to a crane.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The red prayer boulder is shown Tuesday morning, Aug. 15, 2023, after being lifted from its base at Robinson Park.

It wasn’t immediately clear what crews from Mar Lan Construction and Belger Cartage Service were doing at the site ahead of the boulder’s eventual move to Council Grove later this month, and the new spokesperson for the City of Lawrence, Cori Wallace, declined to provide any information to the Journal-World as curious onlookers gathered Tuesday morning. Wallace said only that information would be released next week.

However, Toni Wheeler, the city’s attorney, spoke to a Journal-World reporter at the site and said Tuesday’s plan was to take the rock off its base and lay it on its side while crews dismantled the base of smaller rocks, which would also be moved. She said the rock was still slated to be moved to Council Grove at the end of August after some additional commemorative events in Lawrence.

The project to restore the rock to the Kaw Nation received a $5 million grant from the Mellon Foundation in 2022 to support the restoration effort. In addition to the relocation, the project includes infrastructure for Iⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe, documentation of the history and cultural significance of Iⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe through photographic and video documentation, and the publication of an edited volume through University Press of Kansas.

In March 2021, the Lawrence City Commission voted unanimously to adopt a joint resolution with Douglas County to offer a formal apology to the people of the Kaw Nation for appropriating and defacing the rock and agreeing to its return to the Kaw Nation “without conditions.”

According to the Sacred Red Rock Project, the City of Lawrence and the Kaw Nation will have a public event commemorating the return of Iⁿ’zhúje’waxóbe to the people of the Kaw Nation on Tuesday, Aug. 29, from 10 to 11:30 a.m. in Watson Park, 727 Kentucky St. More information about the event will be provided on the website sacredredrock.com/news/ closer to the event date.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The red prayer boulder is shown Tuesday morning, Aug. 15, 2023, after being lifted from its base at Robinson Park.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The red prayer boulder is shown Tuesday morning, Aug. 15, 2023, after being lifted from its base at Robinson Park.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

The red prayer boulder is shown on its side Tuesday morning, Aug. 15, 2023, after being lifted from its base at Robinson Park.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Workers reposition the prayer rock in Robinson Park Tuesday, Aug. 15, 2023, after it was removed from its base and laid on its side.

photo by: Kansas State Historical Society | Wichita Eagle

The prayer rock was once located along the banks of the Kansas River at the mouth of Shunganunga Creek. The Kaw people used the 10-foot tall red rock with religious ceremonies. In 1929, the rock was moved to Robinson Park near Lawrence’s City Hall to honor the town’s founders.