Starting on the Trails in Johnson County
Next year marks the sesquicentennial of the Oregon-California Trail. The Oregon-California Trail and the Santa Fe Trail were the two great overland trails which carried people and trade goods to the West. The story of these two trails is closely tied to the history of Kansas and the history of Johnson County. Commerce on the Santa Fe Trail began in 1821 when William Becknell established this trade route to the Spanish Southwest. For more than fifty years, the trail was traveled by traders, military units, adventurers, and gold seekers. In 1866, as many as 5,000 wagons traveled the Santa Fe Trail. Emigrants began traveling the Oregon-California Trail in the 1840s in one of the great migrations of modern times. During the years the trail was in use, an estimated 250,000 to 500,000 travelers passed through Johnson County on their 2,000 mile journey to the Pacific Northwest. When the transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, use of the trails suddenly declined since transportation on the railroads proved to be faster and cheaper. Soon the trails were used only as local roads.
In Johnson county, travelers left the civilization of western Missouri for the unknown trails ahead. The county provided campgrounds, grass, and water for thousands who traveled west. Branches of the two trails ran parallel from “jumping off” towns in Westport (now part of Kansas City) and Independence, Missouri. Southwest of Gardner, the two trails divided.
Johnson County has many connections to both the Oregon-California Trail and the Santa Fe Trail. At the edge of the county, near State Line Road and 82nd Street, Alexander Majors began a Santa Fe Trail freighting business in 1848. Majors worked alongside the men he hired, sometimes as wagonmaster and sometimes simply walking beside the teams. In 1854, he joined partners and formed the freighting company of Russell-Majors-Waddell. At the height of their business, the firm owned 3,400 wagons and 40,000 oxen, and employed 4,000 men. Majors was a successful freight operator, but is also remembered for a pledge he had each man sign. Men working on the Santa Fe Trail were often rough, tough men who were accustomed to the difficulties of trail life. Majors, in an effort to keep the men acting in a gentlemanly way, had his employees sign the following pledge: “While I am in the employ of A. Majors, I agree not to get drunk, not to gamble, not to treat animals cruelly, and not to do anything else that is incompatible with the conduct of a gentleman. And I agree, if I violate any of the above conditions, to accept my discharge without any pay for my services.”
After crossing the state line, Santa Fe Trail travelers leaving from Westport often passed through the Shawnee Methodist Indian mission in present-day Fairway. The mission served as one of the first places to stop for water on the trail. Water was plentiful for trail travelers in Johnson county, but as wagons continued west, finding enough water for both people and animals became more difficult.
Since travelers on both trails averaged fifteen to twenty miles a day, most spent their first night on the trail in Johnson County. Some travelers stopped at the Mahaffie Farmstead, an inn and stagecoach stop north of Olathe. Three stagecoach lines stopped at the house, and meals were available for businessmen, military personnel, and other travelers. Caravans of wagons often camped overnight all around the house.
Other travelers spent their first night on the trail at the Lone Elm Campground south of Olathe. In the diary she kept when accompanying her husband down the Santa Fe Trail in 1846, Susan Shelby Magoffin recalled traveling until just before sundown when they prepared to camp at “The Lone Elm.” She described it as follows: “There is no other tree or bush or shrub save one Elm tree, which stands on a small elevation near the little creek or branch. The travellers allways stop where there is water sufficient for all their animals. The grass is fine every place, it is so tall in some places as to conceal a man's waist.” In 1849, traveler J.A. Pritchard noted “all the branches have been cut from it [the elm] by traders & Emegrans for the purpos of fuel. At this place we found some 40 or 50 Emegrant Wagons.” During the Spring, when most travelers embarked on their journeys, as many as one hundred wagons camped at Lone Elm for the night.
After staying overnight at the Mahaffie Farmstead or Lone Elm Campground, travelers continued west in Johnson County. On this second day of the journey, the two trails divided southwest of Gardner. The Oregon-California Trail headed north and the Santa Fe Trail continued to the southwest.
Most travelers made a brief stop in the middle of each day. This stop was called “nooning.” The teams were unhitched so the animals could graze, and travelers ate a cold lunch which was usually made the night before. In her diary, Magoffin recalled a mid-day stop on the Santa Fe Trail after leaving the Lone Elm Campground. “Nothing of importance occurred till noon when we stopped for dinner at ‘Big Bull Creek.’ The travellers call this ‘nooning it.’ Here we had no wood; there are no trees, and we provided none in the morning so we were obliged to take a dinner of crackers with a little ham fried at the small fire of the wagoners.”
This leg of the Santa Fe Trail also passed near the Lanesfield School. James Payne, a student at the school from 1867 to 1874, recalled, “The Santa Fe Trail ran about 100 yards from the schoolhouse, and it was interesting to see the wagon trains pass when we could get outside to enjoy the sight.” Travelers on both trails usually passed out of Johnson County after their second day on the trail. Santa Fe travelers often spent their second night in nearby Black Jack or Baldwin.
A number of organizations have placed markers along the trails, including the Daughters of the American Revolution, the American Pioneer Trails Association, the Auto Club of Southern California, and state and local historical societies. Congress memorialized the part the trails played in our national history by designating the Oregon Trail a National Historic Trail in 1978. The Santa Fe Trail received this designation in 1987. National Park Service markers along the trails are erected and maintained in Johnson County by state, county, or city governments.
--ALBUM vol. 5, no. 4 (fall 1992)