TURNING BACK THE PAGES
Published in Wetmore Spectator and
Horton Headlight—1936.
By John T. Bristow
The Old Overland Trail
STATEMENT BY CHARLES H. BROWNE
Editor Horton Headlight
EDITOR’S NOTE—Nearly a year ago, J. T. Bristow, pioneer resident of Wetmore and former editor of the Wetmore Spectator, promised Charles H. Browne, editor of The Headlight at Horton, Kansas, he would prepare an article dealing with early history of this corner of Kansas, particularly as it was affected by the Old Military Road, which became the Overland Stage route to the Far West and also the Pony Express route.
It was hoped Mr. Bristow would have the article ready for the 50th Anniversary edition of The Headlight, published on October 29, 1936, but this he was unable to do. However, he furnished the article several months later, and The Headlight published it in seven installments.
The article is so unusually well written, so authentic, and of such absorbing interest that the editor has taken the liberty of reproducing it in a small booklet in order that it may better be preserved for its historical importance.
Kansas pioneers living in south-central Nemaha and southern Brown counties a little more than three-quarters of a century ago, witnessed the inauguration of a stage line over an old trail passing their very doors, so to speak.
That road, thick with horse and mule drawn vehicles and long ox-drawn wagon trains, grew quickly into the greatest thoroughfare of its kind on the face of the earth. Simply a winding trail, ungraded and almost wholly without bridges, it was by far the greatest line of vehicular traffic of all times. It was a road with a golden background. It is the major topic of this article.
At that time there were no railroads or telegraph lines west of the Missouri river. A vast wilderness, uninhabited except for Indians and a few isolated white settlements, all territory between the river and the Rocky mountains was designated as “The Great American Desert.” By many it was considered the most worthless stretch of country in the western world. An error, of course, and one agreeably noted by those living here now—notwithstanding the New Deal brain trust’s prophecy that much of this land is to revert to the desert.