The Historic Road from Dodge to Colorado

Along the road from Dodge to Colorado, I found a few things of great historic note.  First off, Dodge was famous for being a stop on the Santa Fe Trail.  This was an old and well used trail, not only did immigrants travel it, but trappers, Indians, and traders for many years,but it's hey day was from 1822 - 1872.  Traveling north west out of Dodge, I came to a sight where they had preserved some of the old trail, and where you could still see tracks from the wagons.

This place sits on the top of a high prairie bluff of sorts.  The way here from Dodge would have been a steady uphill climb.  When you stand here, the stiff wind blows across you.  The weather was close to 100 degrees and it is only June, these travelers would only have moved 12 to 15 miles a day if lucky, so they would have stayed in these conditions for many days.  They say that many people went insane on the trail out.  Back then they blamed it on the wind, but today we would know that it was probably dehydration that was a big factor in this.  The wagons that people came with were big and heavy, but not so big that they could carry the amount of water needed to supply people and animals on the dry plains.  And no matter what you see on those old TV shows, the people did not have a complete home set up in the back, there was no room, and other than the person who drove the wagon, EVERYONE and I mean everyone, old, young, pregnant, you name it, everyone walked.  It was also common with oxen pulling that there was no driver, just someone who guided the oxen. 

The old westerns show the wagon train strung out over the prairie for about a  dozen or two dozen wagons.  This is not the way it was.  The Wagons traveled 4 abreast, to keep the vast train moving faster, to be able to circle wagons quicker, and to keep the dust down.  And in some cases, the wagon train could be hundreds of wagons long. 

Indians were both traded with and feared.  Depending on the situation they could be friendly, or a reason to fight.  Water was scarce, food was scarce.  Although the game of the prairie was plentiful, as the years went by, less and less game was available, hunters had almost wiped out the vast buffalo herds and antelope, deer and other game had been hunted by previous trains.  You need only stand on that plateau and have a new appreciation for our ancestors that had the courage to sell everything they had and embark on a new life, a completely unknown life.  It is also easy to see how towns along these routes got settled.  Heck, some people just got sick of traveling, found a decent spot and settled in.

The ruts from these wagons are impressive, even after all these years.  They tell you to look for a change in vegetation, or an indentation in the ground.

You can clearly still see wagon tracks, and if you look under the
walkway, you will clearly see two sets of indentations

More wagon tracks

The indentations here are clear

 From here the Sante Fe Trail split, with a northern route, called the Mountain Route that went into Colorado and to Bent's Fort, and a Southern route called the Cimmarron Trail that went through the Oklahoma Panhandle.  Both eventually joined together before you reached Santa Fe.



This section was considered the worse piece of the trail.

If you look at the first hill, you can clearly see how the land dips in places, the result of all those wagons

From 1884 to 1887 hundreds of men and boys toiled for the Eureka Irrigation Company, financed by a gentleman by the name of Soule had a brilliant idea to build a canal that could channel the water from the Arkansas River into the plains.  It ended up being about 90 miles long, and reached from Ingalls to Spearville, and provided water to the farmers along the way to irrigate crops and provide water to the masses.  And ambitious plan, it had many problems, from breaks in dams, to it'd biggest problem, the loss of water to evaporation.  In 1921 it failed, and became known as Soule's Ditch, Soule's Folly or Soule's Elephant.  Remnants of it still exist in this area.

The remnants of the canal are visible behind the fence

As I continued North, I passed Monument rocks, but did not take the detour.  If you ever get a chance to go, this place has a huge monolithic rocks  that stick out of the landscape and is famous for what was found there:  some of the best and most unique examples of dinosaur skeletons.  If you are into fossils, this is the place to go.

But I continued to Oakley, where I took a short stop at the tribute to Buffalo Bill Cody.  This is where he was born and near where the the famous competition he had with Medicine Bill Comstock, to see who could kill the most buffalo.  Cody won.  Personally I think it was a very nasty and stupid contest, but back then, they sure did like to shoot buffalo, and never gave a thought to the fact that they were wiping them out.  The statue that is there is pretty remarkable in itself.

Look at the detail on this sculpture!

  To say it is large would be like saying the Mississippi is wide.  This think is humongous!  I think it is probably like 4 times life size and shows Bill in all his glory with his famous rifle he called "Lucretia Borgia".  But I must say the detail on it is remarkable.

But onward I go to Colorado.  I know, I kind of did this out of sequence a little, but hey, I am in Blog kindergarten!  And way behind on my posting!