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Show Santa Fe Trail II fl TO THIEVES, THUGS, FAKIRS AND BUMO-STEERERS, Among Whom Are J. J. EARLIN, aas "OFF WHEEIEH;" SAW DUST CHARLIE, Hi HEDGES, BILL! HE KID, Billy Mullin, Little Jack, The Cuter, Pock-Marked Kid. and about Twenty Others: If Found within the Limits of this City after TEXT O'CLOCK P. LL, this Uight, you will be Invited to attend a GRAITD NECK-TIE PARTY, The Expensa of which will h borne by 100 Substantial Citizens. Las Vegas, March 24th, 1882. When the Rope Was Law on the Santa Fe Trail. Prepared by National Goonrnphlc Society, Washington. D. C. WNU Service.. A. MARKER is to be placed at Ingalls, Kan., by the Santa Fe Trail association as a memorial to Jebediah Smith, one of the early pioneers of America's West. The Santa Fe Trail, a hard, hoof-worn hoof-worn highway, often 100 feet wide, so beaten and packed that It couldn't he plowed, and with not a white settlement settle-ment on Its whole savage-haunted length, stretched across virgin land. On buffalo meat alone the plainsman often lived, and from green hide he made clumsy, Backlike boots to save oxen's feet from stones and lint sand. A good day's march was 15 miles. Over this amazing pathway of the plains drove the longest wagon trains the world ever saw, trains often miles long, with four and even eight creaking creak-ing wagons rumbling abreast. What a colossal traffic It was, pushing out to win the West ! At Its peak, 3.000 wagons wag-ons and M.OOO ox yokes used In one season I Franklin, Mo., In Kit Carson's youth, was the outpost of civilization. St. I,ouis, with 4.000 people, was the only other large town In Missouri. From there clumsy boats, battling sand bars, snags, and muddy whirlpools, their passengers often firing at deer or wild turkeys on the wooded river banks, beat upstream to Franklin, where the Santa Fe Trail then started. Franklin boomed with the fur trade. It fairly seethed with excited men, Oxen bawled ; mules kicked and grunted. grunt-ed. Through mud and dust of the crude town's crowded streets creaked heavily loaded wagons of Conestoga type, canvas-topped, schoonerlike wagons, wag-ons, loaded with bolts of calico, ginghams, ging-hams, velvets, cotton goods, cutlery, firearms, tools, and light hardware, and drawn by four or five pairs of oxen ox-en or mules; and, breasting this westbound west-bound stream, up from Santa Fe, from El Paso, even from far Chihuahua, pack trains came drifting in, laden with Mexican silver, with beaver pelts and buffalo robes. Big-hatted, swarthy "Spanish" men In red blankets and tight trousers men who fought with knives and spoke a purring tongue strange to Missouri folk mingled with returning caravans. Little Left of Franklin. Far outpost of empire Franklin was In those exciting days. It saw the cheering legions pass. Rut now its symphony of life is lulled. Long ago the hungry river claimed most of it. Few. indeed, of the hastening host who pause now for hot dogs or cigarettes even dream what stirring scenes were staged here when the Mexican flag still waved from western Kansas to California. Cali-fornia. Yet Its name, like Daniel Boone's and Kit Carson's, endures In the annals an-nals of the West As for the trail itself, sweeping on from the Big Muddy to ancient Santa Fe, now It Is busier and better than ever. Railroads and motor highways, paralleling Its course, handle today's vast commerce. Now millions ride in speed and safety where pioneers beat their stuhhorn way against thirst and hunger, daring torture and death in the forays and ambuscades of Pawnees, Paw-nees, Kiowas. Cheyennes, Comanches, Osages, and Arapahoes, Where millions of buffalo rocked the plains with the thunder of stampeding hoofs and died from arrows, spears and rifle balls, now millions of meat-bearing meat-bearing animals lift bovine faces to stare at passing trains and motor ears slow-moving, safe In fenced fields, chased by no wolves, Indians, or hungry hun-gry white men on horseback. Windmills, wells, and city water systems sys-tems lots of water now where men wild with thirst once vainly dug with bleeding fingers In dry stream beds, or walked out on parched plains to lie down quietly and die. Kit Carson would find lots of changes, could he come back. "Lifting hair." as be called Indian scalping, is practiced now only in the beauty shops of towns along the trail. It is not easy now to trade heads or cheap firearms tor hunks of virgin silver in Santa Fe; nor would the Town cheer a mule dr'ver arriving from Missouri or call a holiday should a dry g rids peddler arrive. The ancient tree-lined plaza, where pioneer freighters ended their long trip across the plains and unloaded their big wagons. Is still the center of life in Santa Fe. At evening time, when soft breezes sigh among the trembling elm leaves, the local senorl-tas, senorl-tas, dark-eyed and flirtatious, promenade promen-ade this ancient plaza and smile as ravishingly as In Kit Carson's romantic roman-tic day. But none of them would leave home now for a red-headed beaver trapper, even If the trapper had licked every other rival at the fandango. How the Trail Altered. Originally the trail ran upstream from Franklin, crossed the Missouri at Arrow Rock, and stretched west through what Is now Lexington and Independence, In-dependence, Mo. A rich region this, where, as settlers multiplied, a vigorous vig-orous culture developed, with Its familiar fa-miliar homemade walnut furniture, ash hoppers, big soap and sorghum kettles, looms, and spinning wheels. Today, where Washington Irving saw myriad prairie chickens, or "par-rokeets," "par-rokeets," as pioneers called them, one passes big pens of white Leghorns. Endless "Old Trail" garages take the place of wayside blacksmith shops, where former pilgrims stopped to shoe p. horse or set a tire. Where slaves tended hemp and tobacco, big dairy plants are busy now, their painted barns and silos replacing the weather-beaten weather-beaten tobacco sheds of other days. As commerce grew, boats pushed farther up the Missouri, passing Franklin. By 1S31 Independence became be-came the starting point for traffic across the plains. Plying the river then was one government-owned boat used for exploring, the Western Engineer. Engi-neer. An early narrative says: "In place of a bowsprit she has carved a great serpent, and as the steam escapes es-capes out of Its mouth it runs out a long tongue, to the perfect horror of the Indians." Independence, In its palmy days, was the funnel through which westward travel poured. From here went not only Santa Fe traders, but Mormon trains for L'tah and the thousands of covered wagons for the long Oregon trail to the Northwest In "The Western West-ern Guide Book and Emigrant Directory" Direc-tory" for 1S49, is a rude map, showing all the great overland trails as starting start-ing from Independence, Mo. ; but the big blank spots on this map and its meager details reveal how little we knew of our western country only SO years ago. Birth of Kansas City. A few miles up from Independence Independ-ence Landing, where the Kansas, long called the Kaw, twists north Into the Missouri, fur traders and freighters found a flat, shelving rock, an easy place to land goods. Near here, by 1S33, a new town, Westport, came Into being. In time It became the starting point for Santa Fe. Gradually, as merchants and farmers followed the fur traders, this colony spread through a gap In the bluffs and came to be known as "Kansas." after the local tribe of Indians. In-dians. Incorporated as the "Town of Kansas" in 1S50, its name was changed to Kansas City in 1SS9. Southwest Into Kansas the old trail runs; thence west along the north bank of the Arkansas river, which formed part of the boundary between the United States and Mexico until the war of 1S40-4S. A few miles west of where Dodge City stands the trail originally orig-inally crossed the river, at Cimarron Crossing, following the Cimarron valley val-ley over southwest Kansas and on to Las Vegas, New Mexico. But this road crossed mnny miles of waterless land, and later pioneers blazed a longer long-er but more watered path. This latter branch became in time the main thoroughfare, thor-oughfare, especially for wagons. It follows the Arkansas river into Colorado, Colo-rado, through La Junta nnd Trinidad ; thence over Raton Pass, and to Las Vegas and Santa Fe. Today the Santa Fe railway and the popular Santa Fe motor highway use this same route or closely parallel it. From Franklin. Mo., to Santa Fe, the oM trail is now well marked by monuments sor up by the Daughters of the American Revolution. |