Santa Fe-Oregon-California Trail Swale at Harmon Park
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
A physical reminder of the western trails utilized by pioneers in the 19th century can be found at Harmon Park in Prairie Village. This Clio entry is pinned at the precise location of a swale (depression) that was caused by thousands of wagons as they made their way through present-day Prairie Village to the Oregon Trail, California Trail, or the Santa Fe Trail. During the early years of the trails, the vast majority of migrants went through modern-day Prairie Village on their way to Gardner, Kansas where the three trails divided. The trails led to some of the earliest commercial development in this area and railway and interstate highways later followed westward trail paths. The mass migration came at a high cost to Native Americans and some of the western travelers who perished along the trail. In 2018, a half-acre portion of Harmon Park was added to the National Register of Historic Places owning to the continued existence of depressions caused by wagons that were verified by experts using advanced equipment.
Images
Harmon Park’s Santa Fe-Oregon-California Trails Swale: "This swale is located along the combined route of these three trails as they head southwest out of Westport, Missouri to present-day Gardner, Kansas where the Santa Fe Trail split from the Oregon and California Trails."

Nineteenth Century Western Migration Trails

Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
Hundreds of thousands of people fulfilled the American ideal of "Manifest Destiny" by migrating westward through Kansas on wagon trails during the nineteenth century; a belief that God intended for the U.S. to spread its dominion and culture across North America. Though only a few swales (ruts and low areas) exist today as physical reminders, this swale at Austin Harmon Park in Prairie Village has been preserved. The swale developed as westward migrants traveled along the combined Santa Fe, Oregon, and California trails to such places as Santa Fe, San Francisco, Salt Lake, and Oregon. They departed from Westport, Missouri, which is five miles northeast of Prairie Village and proceeded along a route that connects present-day Prairie Village with Gardner, Kansas 25 miles southwest. At that point,the Santa Fe Trail split from the Oregon and California trails.
Though the bulk of travelers used westward trails from the 1840s through the 1860s, the genesis of the Santa Fe Trail dates back to 1821. Kansas. The Santa Fe Trail emerged as a trade route shortly after the Mexican Independence, linking the United States with Santa Fe in northern Mexico; the Trail crossed the entire length of present-day Kansas. After the Mexican-American War (1846-1848) and subsequent U.S land annexation of old Mexican lands, including the New Mexico Territory, the Santa Fe Trail shifted to domestic trade, communication across the expanding country, and shipping and abundance of military cargo to newly established forts.
The Oregon Trail began as a series of Native American trade and migration routes that crisscrossed the American West, later utilized mainly by British, French, and American fur trappers during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. By the 1820s, caravans of pack trains, carts, and wagons -- the fur caravan -- traversed the Plains to such places as today's Wyoming and northern Utah) and the Hudson's Bay Company headquarters at Fort Vancouver in the Oregon Country. By the 1840s, families in covered wagons joined the 2,200-mile fur caravan to the Oregon Country, then jointly owned by the U.S. and Great Britain.
The steady influx of Americans into the region also came with pressure on the British to withdraw from the area, leading to an 1846 treaty giving the U.S. control of lands south of the 49th parallel, today's U.S.-Canada border. The emigration surged during the early 1850s as homesteaders flocked to Oregon to obtain land provided to them under the Donation Lands Act. By 1860, approximately 53,000 travelers in covered wagons crossed the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest.
The California Trail and Oregon Trail existed as a shared trail from the Missouri River and Kansas through the Rocky Mountains before branching out at various towns and camps in and beyond the Sierra Nevada. In 1841, near modern-day Soda Springs, Idaho, the Bidwell-Bartleson Party split away from the Oregon Trail and headed south through the un-mapped Great Basin and along the Humboldt River to California, which existed as part of Mexico at that time. The party survived the arduous (and treacherous) trip and, after recruiting other emigrants to follow, ostensibly established the California Trail. Over time, travelers developed a more direct course across Idaho and Nevada to the Humboldt River and better routes through the Sierra Nevada. Even after the U.S. took possession of California after defeating Mexico in the 1846-1848 Mexican-American War, only a smattering of travelers went to California until the 1849 Gold Rush. The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill opened the migration (and immigration) floodgates into California, allowing it to gain statehood by 1851; more than 200,000 migrants reached California via the California Trail by 1860.
The nature of the shared trail through modern-day Prairie, Kansas, changed profoundly over the years. In the 1840s, westward travelers routinely encountered Native Americans and endured hardship (many died) as they made the long journey on their own across the Plains, through the Nevada desert, over and through the mountains, and over the rapids of the Columbia River, often on trails yet to be clearly established. Very few stops existed along the way, minus a few military and trading posts, but they had little food or resources to spare. However, over time, large ranches and small towns emerged along the trails. Businesspersons established ferries, bridges, and toll roads; hauled water into the desert to sell to covered-wagon caravans; and built trading posts where travelers could resupply or exchange exhausted draft animals for fresh ones.
Much of the traffic that came through this area came during the 1840s. Traffic slowed down in Kansas during the tumultuous 1850s, a period known as "Bleeding Kansas" and even more so during the Civil War. During the war, more people chose to leave through Nebraska than through Kansas, helped in part by Mormon pioneers who had developed their own trail through Nebraska along the Platte River that led to Salt Lake City. As a result, by the late 1850s, more people chose to take a steamboat northward up the Missouri River to Nebraska City, Omaha, and Council Bluffs and then start their journeys westward. Finally, the railway construction boom that began in the 1860s ended the use of overland trails that took five to six months. With the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, trains could transport people to the West safely and in a manner of weeks.
The Harmon Park Swale provides a physical reminder of a phrase coined in 1845: Manifest Destiny. This belief predates the trail and suggests divine support for the people of the United States to expand across North America. From the 1840s through the 1860s, hundreds of thousands of travelers joined caravans of covered wagons and animals headed thousands of miles to the American Southwest, West, and Pacific Northwest. Some looked for gold, some for trading prospects, while others looked to create a better life. The westward trails also led to economic opportunities; trading posts, fort construction, supply stores, and the emergence of towns all emerged as the westward routes grew increasingly popular. Moreover, the nineteenth-century western migration trails profoundly influenced later advances such as the Pony Express, the transcontinental telegraph and railroad, and several interstate highways. However, tends of thousands of people died along the way (estimates of the number of people who died on the Oregon Trail alone are over 20,000, primarily due to accidents or cholera. The trails also accelerated the displacement of Native Americans, including those who had been promised lands in the west by treaty after previous displacement.
Sources
Anderson, Rick, Amanda K. Loughlin, and Tim Weston. "Registration Form: Harmon Park's Santa Fe-Oregon-California Trails Swale." National Register of Historic Places. kshs.org. 2018. https://www.kshs.org/resource/national_register/nominationsNRDB/KS_JohnsonCounty_SFTMPS_HarmonParkSwale.pdf.
Heitala, Thomas R. Manifest Design. American Exceptionalism & Empire. Revised Edition. Ithica: Cornell University Press. 2003.
Hine, Robert V. and John Mack Faragher. Frontiers: A Short History of the American West. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007.
Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature's Role in American History. Second Edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Kansas Historical Society, Twitter: @kansashistory : https://twitter.com/kansashistory/status/1025772333863186432/photo/1
National Geographic: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/trails-west/