Hiawatha, Kansas 1858, and the first school opened in 1870. The main street was designated Oregon Street after the Oregon Trail. Parallel streets north of it were named after Indian tribes north of the Trail, and streets south carried tribal names of those south of the Trail. Hiawatha is named after a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called "The Song of Hiawatha". In the poem is legendary Onondaga and Mohawk Indian leader Hiawatha. Adjacent to the former Ioway-Sac reservation and the present-day Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, Hiawatha is called "Hári Wáta" in Ioway, meaning "I am looking far away". This
The Song of Hiawatha It was composed by ‘Neil Moret’ (Charles Daniels) while on the train to Hiawatha, Kansas, in 1901 and was inspired by the rhythm of the wheels on the rails. It was already popular when James O'Dea added lyrics in 1903, and the music was newly subtitled "His Song to Minnehaha". Later treated as a rag, it later became a jazz standard. Duke Ellington incorporated treatments of Hiawatha and Minnehaha in his jazz suite "The Beautiful Indians" (1946–7). Other popular songs have included "Hiawatha’s Melody of Love", by George W. Meyer, with words by Alfred Bryan and Artie Mehlinger (1908), and