History of Tsavo East

The Tsavo East National Park has an interesting and diverse history including: the Waliangulu and Kamba tribes who used the park as a hunting ground prior to gazette-ment; the first European to see Mount Kenya, rev. Dr. L. Krapf, journeyed on foot through this area in 1848; during the construction of the railway bridge over the Tsavo River in 1898, lions (the famed man-eaters of Tsavo) terrorized the workers, killing over 130 people before being killed by Col. J. H. Patterson. During World War 1, British forces along the Tsavo River encountered threats from invading German soldiers from Tanganyika (now Tanzania); the European explorer Captain Lugards  passed through the area on his way to Uganda.