"This morning we passed the road to Oregon that leaves, about eight miles from Round Grove, the Santa Fe Road, and turns to the right towards the Kansas. A way post had been put there, marked "Road to Oregon." —Dr. Frederick A. Wislizenus, May 24, 1846
The historic junction of three great western frontier trails; the Santa Fe Trail, the Oregon Trail, and the California Trail is located approximately one-half mile to the north. To the southwest lay the Santa Fe Trail and to the northwest was the road to Oregon and California.
By 1827, freight wagons loaded with goods and commodities were traveling between the Missouri River frontier and Mexico's provincial capital at Santa Fe. A single event that year determined the location of this historic junction and foreshadowed the creation of the Oregon and California trails. Fur trappers William Sublette and Moses "Black" Harris, returning from a 1,500 mile journey to the northern Rocky Mountains, came down the Kansas River Valley and encountered the Santa Fe Trail near here and followed it east to the settlements at Independence and St. Louis.
Between the late 1830s and the early 1850s, as many as 200,000 emigrants may have passed through this gateway in order to start a new life in the Oregon Territory or to take a chance seeking their fortune
in the gold fields of California. During this same period, thousands of freighters loaded with commodities were also rumbling through this junction heading to and from the markets at Santa Fe.
When William Sublette turned south from the Kansas River toward the path of the Santa Fe Trail, he did more than establish an emigrant path to the west, he created a "landmark."
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