The Lone Elm Campground
The land here at Lone Elm met the three requirements for a stopover for travelers on the trail...wood, water, and grass. Wood for campfires and wagon repairs, water for the support of people and animals, and grass for the grazing of substantial numbers of livestock, horses, mules and oxen that might travel with any wagon train.
Frontier trail campgrounds along waterways tended to be linear, running along the creek or stream. Lone Elm was no exception, as travelers staked out pieces of ground up and down this branch of Cedar Creek, which bisects the property from northwest to southeast.
On any evening in the 1840's this campground might have reflected a variety of travelers on the trail...traders bound for Santa Fe, families of emigrants bound for the West, mountain men, missionaries, entrepreneurs and opportunists...the famous and the unknown.
By the late 1840's one of Lone Elm's attributes...wood...was in short supply as the famous lone elm tree itself was the sole remnant of the grove.
"This was a most desirable spot for camping, as wood, grass, and a running, limpid stream were close at hand......We encamped at the "Lone Elm" in the midst of a hard rain which poured on us the entire day; and, the wagons being full of goods and we without tents, a cheerless, shilling, soaking, wet night was the consequence. As the water penetrated, successively, my blankets, coat, and shirt, and made its way down my back, a cold shudder came over me; in the gray foggy morning a more pitiable set of hungry, shaking wretches were never seen. Oh! but it was hard on the poor greenhorns."
- Lewis H. Garrand
Excerpt from the journal of 17 year old Lewis Garrand, while camping at Lone Elm on September 16th, 1846.
The Lone Elm Tree
The Lone Elm tree was the survivor of what had been in the 1820's a substantial body of trees, likely all elms, known as Round Grove to Santa Fe Trail travelers. Over a period of two decades Round Grove was consumed for campsite firewood, leaving one huge elm tree, which also succumbed in 1849.
The Lone Elm's singular position alone on the prairie, a sentinel against the backdrop of the western sky, left its impression on many trail travelers.....
"At Lone-Elm tree we halted at noon.......How long the venerable elm tree, that must have seen many ages, will yet be respected by the traveler, I am unable to say; but I fear that its days are numbered, and that the little valley will look more desolate than ever."
Dr. Frederick A. Wislizenus - May 23, 1846
"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 travelers always 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."
Susan Shelby Magoffin - June 11, 1846
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