The Indians named the Medicine River, and their medicine lodge was 
  located somewhere south of the present town of Medicine Lodge.
     There are legends and other explanations as to why this name was
  chosen for the river. The Indians held pow-wows, dances, and religious
  rites here, and made medicine. The water of the river contained magnesium
  sulfate (Epsom salts), calcium, and dolemite. They thought that the 
  spirits of the hills and streams were present here.
     Barber County is bisected by the Medicine River, which comes into the
  county at a point three miles south of the northwest corner and winds its
  way southeastward, cutting the county nearly in half diagnolly. The river
  leaves the county at a point one and one-half miles west of the south-
  east corner. This point of departure marks the low elevation of the county
  at 1250 feet. The high elevation is found one mile south of highway 160
  on the Deerhead road at 2,031 feet. The average rainfall of the county is
  25.2 inches, but varies from this figure taken at Medicine Lodge by one
  inch less in the western part to one inch more in the eastern part.
     The Medicine River is not exactly a division of the soil type, but it
  does divide the soil type in a broad sense. To the south of the rifer we
  find most of the red soil, with a narrow band of red soil with irregular
  boundaries to the north of the river. This situation is fairly uniform
  except in the western part of the county, where the red soil here is
  predominately brown.
     There is an alluvial fan jutting in from the west, passing through
  Deerhead township and for the most part terminating in Eagle township,
  which is the remnant of an ancient river of tremendous proportions that
  emptied into an inland sea. This alluvial fan deposited brown soil and 
  sand over the red soil to a depth of ninety feet in the deeper part to
  zero feet out on the edges. There are water-bearing sands, gravel, and
  good soft water underlying this area. In the sand and gravel beds are
  found many mollusk shells, an extinct specie of oyster that lived 280
  million years ago. Also, found here are many nuggets of quartz, foreign
  to this locality, highly polished by the tumbling action of the river
  water that brought them here from the west.
  
                  
     Source:Chosen Land - Barber County, Kansas,  pg. 7
     Submitted by: Elmer Angell, Jr.