At Pittsburgh and adjacent cities I was received cordially and encouraged to believe that the movement to make a great national highway had taken a deep hold in the minds of the people.
I was not so much encouraged in St. Louis. The city officers were unwilling to do anything to further the movement, but before I left the city, the Automobile Club and the Daughters of the American Revolution did take formal action indorsing the work. St. Louis had really been the head and center of the movement that finally established the original Oregon Trail. It was from here that Lewis and Clark started on the famous expedition of 1804-05 that opened up the Northwest. Here was where Wyeth, Bonneville, and others of the early travelers on the trail had outfitted.
Brown Bros.
The drive from St. Louis to Jefferson City, the capital of the State of Missouri, was tedious and without result other than that of reaching the point where actual driving began in early days. Governor Folk signified his approval of the work, and I was given a cordial hearing by the citizens.
On the fourth of April I arrived at Independence, Missouri, which is generally understood to be the eastern terminus of the Santa Fé Trail. I found, however, that many of the pioneers had shipped farther up the Missouri, some driving from Atchison, some from Leavenworth, others from St. Joseph. At a little later period, multitudes had set out from Kanesville (now Council Bluffs), where Whitman and Parker made their final break with civilization and boldly turned their faces westward for the unknown land of Oregon.
The Santa Fé; and Oregon trails from Independence and Kansas City were identical for forty miles or thereabouts, out to the town of Gardner, Kansas. From there the Santa Fé Trail bore on to the west and finally to the southwest, while the Oregon Trail bore steadily on to the northwest and encountered the Platte valley below Grand Island in what is now Nebraska. At the forks of the road, the historian Chittenden says, "a simple signboard was seen which carried the words 'Road to Oregon,' thus pointing the way for two thousand miles. No such signboard ever before pointed the road for so long a distance, and probably another such never will."
I determined to make an effort to find the spot where this historic sign once stood, and if possible to plant a marker there. Friends in Kansas City, one of whom I had not met for sixty years, took me by automobile to Gardner, where, after a search of a couple of hours, two old residents were found who were able to point out the spot. These men were Mr. V. R. Ellis and Mr. William J. Ott, aged respectively seventy-seven and eighty-two years, whose residence in the near vicinity dated back nearly fifty years. The point is at the intersection of Washington Street and Central Street in the town of Gardner.
I planned to drive up the Missouri and investigate the remaining five prongs of the trail—Leavenworth, Atchison, St. Joseph, Kanesville, and Independence. I drove to Topeka, the capital city of Kansas, where I arrived the eleventh of May (1908). There the trail crosses the Kansas River under the very shadow of the State House, not three blocks away; yet only a few knew of it.
On the twenty-third of May the team arrived at St. Joseph, Missouri, a point where many pioneers had outfitted in early days. While public sentiment there was in hearty accord with the work of marking the trail, yet plainly it would be a hard tug to get the people together on a plan to erect a monument. "Times were very tight to undertake such a work," came the response from so many that no organized effort was made.