February 2021
Greetings once again fellow trail trav’lers,
We are not kicking up much trail dust in 2020-2021 but our spirits are likely willin’….
All of us with KCAHTA and our many trail partners, extend special compliments to DIANE and CRAIG CREASE in celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary in January 2021!
This year is the 200th Anniversary of the opening of the Santa Fe Trial. This mile-point is being led by Santa Fe Trail Association and its local MRO chapter. It is also embraced by many organizations including KCAHTA. The Kansas Historical Society is offering monthly virtual classes on the Santa Fe Trail, and periodic on-line lectures by noted trail authorities.
Why wait until springtime to hit the trail!?……Check it out (www.kshs.org)! Membership is the hallmark of KCAHTA’s out- reach, advocacy for trail preservation, advocacy, and education. I invite each of you to become actively engaged in preserving our ‘trail’ history. Many KCAHTA members belong to other historic trail organizations and preservation groups, and many are in leadership capacities.
Within our own Executive Committee, its members also serve in leadership capacities of other organizations. Some members personally undertake initiatives or projects which educate and preserve our ‘historic trail’ heritage!
The impact to our nation’s growth and development is attributable to the early trails worn by native peoples and those blazed by explorers and emigrants on our nation’s frontier. However, we get it done, preserving our nation’s heritage in any form is a must!
August 2020
Greetings from trailside,
We continue to adjust our lives to impacts and issues surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic our nation and the world faces, and all the while seek to retain as much normalcy to our lives as possible.
Compliments to our Executive Committee for remaining actively engaged in various activities of community outreach, and ‘trails-related’ projects both large and small.
Also, as we know, many of our KCAHTA members wear several ‘hats’ and serve in positions of leadership within other trail groups and preservation organizations.
I continually witness a commitment of excellence by our membership as we outreach to the public we voluntarily serve. The travails which have beseeched our nation these past months, through efforts by some to discount our nation’s heritage, make it incumbent upon each of us to remain vigilant in our efforts to preserve our past. It is our obligation to better understand where we came from to better guide future generations and to guide them forward down the ‘trail’ of life.
Pioneers of the mid-1800s traveling to California and Oregon (and even to Santa Fe) were mindful there would be risks, hardship and peril. However, that did not deter them from being part of
mankind’s greatest migration as they made westward plans of discovery and opportunity Since the Kroh Quads project’s inception, it has been the aim of the KCAHTA and its partners to have available for public access by January 1, 2020 the digitized files of the Kroh collection.
We look forward to next year in which the
‘Father of the Santa Fe Trail’, William Becknell, 200 years ago journeyed to the new nation of Mexico in September, 1821, thus opening the doors of trade and commerce between our two nations.
Wishing you best of health,
President Gary Hicks
April 2020
Greetings from trail side,
The COVID-19 ‘trail’ we now experience has been long and fraught with challenges of health, social, and economic issues, with compressed and comprehensive impacts. During the westward expansion of our nation, we are reminded of the unique perils faced and overcome by those emigrants with faith and determination.
Santa Fe Trail, Oregon and California Trails travelers were faced with decisions of planning the journey according to the calendar, not the clock. Travel which takes (12) hours by auto today could take 30 days by wagon in the 1800s. Travelers were confronted with the ravages of nature including drought, flooding, rattlesnakes, plus inadequate shelter.
Westbound from Fort Dodge, the hard decision was whether to take the Cimarron Cutoff (shorter, yet most often unsafe for its scarcity of water), or the 15-20% longer (yet safer) Mountain Branch.
Santa Fe Trail travelers and freighters crossed lands inhabited by the American Indian. Though protected by treaties, most interactions were peaceful. However, distrust and harmful encounters were experienced on both sides.
The Oregon Trail is tagged as this nation's longest graveyard, where nearly one in ten of the approximately 350,000 emigrants who set off on the trail during 1841 to 1869 did not survive. The main causes of deaths along the Oregon- California Trail were cholera, typhoid fever, dysentery, drowning, gun-shot wounds, river crossings, accidents, and weather.
We honor the achievements of those 19th Century pioneers who chartered the westward course for our nation and suffered in their journey. Our journey today causes us to make the same decisions regarding what obstacles will be encountered and what risks to overcome.
See ya out on the Trail again soon…. I hope!
Gary L. Hicks, President
Feb 2020
Aloha from the Trail,
Well, it’s that time of year when Louise and I trek along that 3900-mile journey to the Hawaiian Islands in the remote reaches of the Pacific Ocean. On Friday, January 17, due to severe icing, we had a two-day extension flying out of Kansas City!
Such are the challenges of modern-day travel!
The advent of the railroad changed the dynamics of how our nation migrated westward, from over 100 days travel to the coast by wagon to 10 days by rail! Powered flight was barely a concept by the latter 1800s, and decades away in the future from proving its possibilities.
Crossing the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans by air would not happen until the late 1920s!
Reflecting back to the old ‘trail days’ of the 1800s, America was harvesting the benefits of its industries of the 1820s-1840s. Travel along the trails used modern Murphy wagons of St. Louis, or the seasoned Conestoga’s of Pennsylvania.
Traveling on the Santa Fe-Oregon-California Trails as pioneers or freighters was fraught with the challenges including schedule, nature’s uncertainty, health issues, what to pack, and whether to pull the wagons by oxen, mules, or horses. Thus, were the challenges of travel along the trail in the 1800s!
In the 1800s traveling 1800 miles to Oregon would have taken maybe 140 days. Flying the 3900-mile trek to Maui in the 21st century is about a 12-hr day, including a latte or two! Such are the rewards of modern-day travel……. when all goes according to plan! Guess not much has changed since back then except traveling by ‘birds’ and not wagons pulled by oxen!
Hi, from Maui! - Gary L. Hicks, President
Nov 2019
Greetings Fellow ‘Trail Travelers’,
As we transition into another season along the trail, we give pause to reflect on this year’s journey of discovery, learning and sharing as we explore and experience the heritage of our nation’s historic trails and roads. It is important to note that many KCAHTA members are engaged in other trail organizations and preservation interests.
Networking, partnership, and leadership are hallmarks of the viability and capability of KCAHTA of membership, and the durable fabric of preservation association.
KCAHTA member Larry Short is to be commended as the newly elected National President of the Santa Fe Trail Association.
Pat Traffas (KCAHTA Vice-President) is to be commended for her recent completion of two years as National President of the Oregon- California Trails Association. Leaders such as Pat and Larry carry the torch lighting the trails before us! Thank you both!
On behalf of KCAHTA I wish to extend gratitude to the family of Lee Kroh (wife Dorothy, and sons Roger and Bryan) for the transfer of the copyright of the Lee Kroh U.S.G.S Quadrangle Maps to our organization. The transferred copyright is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington D.C. This transfer provides for KCAHTA to digitize Lee’s quadrangle maps! Your donation to Lee’s Memorial Mapping Project to digitize 252 of his maps is a major step in making these maps available to the public! (see pages one and three)
Many KCAHTA members attended the annual national conventions of both OCTA and SFTA. Wife Louise and I were in Salt Lake City during the OCTA convention in August to address the audience as ALEXANDER MAJORS. This driving trip covered eight states and 4500 miles!
We attended the SFTA Conference in September, then the car turned east and stopped at the Pacific Ocean! Both trips were extraordinary, with history, heritage, and nature as primary themes.
Gary L. Hicks, President
Aug 2019
Greetings Fellow ‘Swale Swallows’,
Historically, the symbol of an experienced sailor of the high-seas, the symbol of the ‘Barn Swallow’ may apply to the thousands who have guided their ‘prairie schooner’ across the grassy plains of our western frontier. Today, with the “Dog Days” of August upon us, we may find ourselves basking in the 72-deg comfort of air conditioning and simply imagining the hardship of frontier ‘trail-life’ of the 1800s. Yet, many ol’ trail ruts and swales remain for us to discover, to learn from, to preserve, and interpret.
Through our partnership with NPS-NTIR and following a 1½ year assessment period of KC area high-priorty locations evalutated for placement of new wayside exhibits, three high priorty sites are being considered for final authorization.
Also, partnering with the City of Shawnee and Star Signs of Lawence, KS, a new replacement plaque will be installed on a large boulder to be relocated into West Flanders Park, Shawnee. The Education Committee is also coordinating the text and graphics for a new wayside exhibit to be placed adjacent to the newly mounted plaque. Both the plaque and wayside exhibit interpret the historic Ft. Leavenwoth - Ft. Scott Military Road which crossed that very site.
Mark Morgan’s ‘soft-point’ trail signage project in Prairie Village, KS remains on course.
KCAHTA members wear many hats serving KCAHTA and preservation organizations, both locally and nationally. Our member commitment to trails preservation is the hallmark of KCAHTA’s success!
For these past 25 years, regardless of the barking “Dog Days” of August, KCAHTA has preserved historic trails routes mapped by the historian and guided by remnant ‘swales’. Being a ‘Swale Swallow’ of the great plains is akin to being that sailor of the high seas! The challenge though is getting out from the comfort of our 72- degree air conditioning! A ‘Swallow Tattoo’ anyone?…. as did the sailors of old?
Gary L. Hicks, President
