Thank you for having me here tonight.
As he said, I am Travis
Boley from Independence, Missouri with the
Oregon California
Trails Association.
My hometown is Lexington, Missouri so the
Missouri River has been my back yard for much
of my life.
I have
lived other places but I was drawn back to
Missouri a number of
years ago and haven’t yet regretted that.
Lexington was much
like Kansas City, kind of trail center.
Sante Fe Trail was my
back yard.
Lewis and Clark Trail was my front yard.
The
founders of the Pony Express and their trail
were right there
from my hometown so I had it around me my
whole life.
As he was
saying, this is history.
It is science.
It is recreation and it
is the Missouri River water shed so I am going
to start you off
the river a little bit before I get to a vision
that I’ve had for
what we might do along the Missouri River.
Now all of these historic trails, the reason
they were jumping
off from here was really two fold.
It was the meeting place for
the Missouri and Kansas Rivers.
It’s where the Missouri River
bends to the north.
It was also the western most part of the
United States up until 1854.
The state line was Indian
Territory.
It was not part of the United States government.
These trails got their start in 1821 out in
central Missouri in a
town that no longer exists, Franklin, just
across from where
Booneville is today when an enterprising farmer
said you know the
Mexicans have just won their freedom from
Spain and agriculture
prices here aren’t the best so I will take
my goods to market in
Sante Fe.
So that was the beginning of the Sante Fe
Trail and, of course,
coursed right through here.
You will notice the map I have up
here has multiple lines and there are multiple
trails and
multiple variants of trails.
I always talk about trails at
either end here, Sante Fe, and in California
and Oregon as two
ends of an unbraided rope.
A lot of different jumping off places
along the Missouri River.
A lot of different places that people
were going on the west end.
There are three main jumping off
points in the Kansas City Metro area.
The first is up there on
the far right.
It is kind of a purple line and that is the
Blue
Mills Landing.
If you were to go U.S. Highway 24 through
Independence to the very eastern edge of town
to Blue Mills Road
and follow that to about where it peters out
and where the Little
Blue River dumps into the Missouri, that’s
where the Blue Mills
Landing was.
It was used for a bit in the 1830s/1840s.
A little
farther west in the town of Sugar Creek, where
the Lafarge Cement
Plant is today, was a town that’s no longer
there.
It was called
Wayne City.
There was a natural wharf there.
Up until the
1850s, it was heavily used.
It was the four and a half mile
trail that took you to the Independence Square,
which most people
around the world regard as the beginning of
the Oregon Trail.
A
little further west than that is what was
called the Westport
Landing and that was the landing that brought
people to where we
are right now, to Westport.
The Westport Landing today can still
be seen.
The ruins of the buildings that were there
are still
there.
It was called Town of Kansas then.
It’s basically where
the Town of Kansas pedestrian bridge goes
right out to the edge
of the river.
If you turn around and look back, you’ll
see the
ruins of some of those buildings.
What we’re endeavoring to do, at least on
what we call the
Independence Route, which is the yellow and
red dotted line, is
to rebuild, to retrace that 40 mile corridor
of the shared
experience of the Sante Fe, Oregon and California
trail from
Sugar Creek to Gardner, Kansas, a distance
of about 40 miles.
As
I go through this tonight you’ll see a lot
of different things
that we’ve already done along the way and
plans that we have.
The key things to know are first the Katy
Trail extension is
going to happen.
Jackson County last month arranged to buy
the
17 mile rail line that runs through Lee’s
Summit and Raytown up
to Arrowhead Stadium.
That is going to happen in short order.
So that will bring the Katy Trail into Kansas
City.
We will
connect to that at 63rd and Blue Ridge in
Raytown.
Raytown has
its own master plan of redoing its entire
downtown.
It is all
really economic development.
That is mostly what we’re talking
about here, is economic development, recreation,
history, and, as
you will see in a little bit, even some science.
Now those three
national historic trails were designated by
congress beginning in
1978.
There is a fourth national historic trail,
one of which you are
all very familiar with I’m sure, and that
is the Lewis and Clark
National Historic Trail of which we obviously
touch in several
places.
So, we do have different types of national
historic
trail development.
I should back up and say there is a National
Trails Act that was passed by congress in
1968, signed by
President Johnson, and it has been amended
numerous times since
then.
First in 1978 when they created national historic
trails
when you go the Oregon Trail, the Lewis and
Clark Trail, the
Mormon Pioneer Trail, and I will forget the
fourth one and omit
it for now.
There are now 19 national historic trails.
There
are 11 national scenic trails, things like
the Appalachian Trail,
the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific
Crest Trail in 49
states.
The only state that’s left out right now
is Indiana.
There is a movement to move the Lewis and
Clark Trail back to
what many people view as it's beginning at
Monticello,
Jefferson’s home, which would obviously
go up the Ohio River and
put Indiana into the system.
So what we have here in the Kansas City Metro
area really is the
first attempt to actually do what congress
intended, which is to
retrace these trails, especially the historic
trails where a lot
of times there’s very few if any remnants
left.
In the Kansas
City area it's very hard to see remnants.
There are some and
I’ll show you.
The first type of thing that we’re doing
on top
is typically 10 feet wide hiking/biking trail
in the rights of
way along basically where the trail used to
go.
That’s not
always right where it was.
A lot of times trails go through
people’s homes today, people’s businesses,
other types of
development, and it's not always practicable.
Congress did allow
for building retracement trail as close as
is practicable to the
original route.
The second type is the actual sites.
What you’re looking at
there in the middle picture is 85th and Manchester
in South
Kansas City.
It's a very deep wagon swell, several feet
deep
that courses up the hill to the southwest
very near Hickman Mills
School District buildings.
Of course, signing and marking is an
important component of this.
This is the western edge of what
we’re talking about tonight.
That is at Gardner Junction, just a
little bit west of the town of Gardner, Kansas,
a park that was
built about 10 years ago or so.
So there’s the definition of
what a retracement trail is.
I won't read it but it's basically
recreating a walking/hiking/biking experience
in a historic trail
corridor.
Things like the Red Bridge Project in South
Kansas
City where when the new bridge was built the
decision was made to
retrofit the old Red Bridge as a hiking/biking
bridge but also to
put pedestrian facilities on both sides of
the driving bridge and
include historic trail exhibits as well as
about 12 biographies
of important people to the trail experience
that you can see
today.
Those others are what the trail kind of looks
like
farther west.
Different types of retracements that you see
in
other parts of the country.
This map shows really what’s existing already.
The dark green is
trail that’s built.
You’ll notice, and we’ll get to this in
a
little bit, why this is.
South Kansas has a lot.
The light
green is stuff that’s planned and the orange
is proposed.
You
can see Independence and Raytown lag behind
and Johnson County
seems nonexistent, though that’s not entirely
true.
The reason
South Kansas City is so far ahead is that
a number of years ago
the City of Kansas City created what they
called the Three Trails
Community Improvement District.
They saw the Three Trails as an
opportunity to redevelop the area.
You can see that happening
today with things like the Cerner project.
It's eventually going
to build out millions of square feet of office
space, have 14,000
employees, and completely reinvent that neighborhood.
They saw
this long ago as a chance for economic redevelopment.
When the
highways, what used to be called Grandview
Triangle, were
redesigned it was even renamed the Three Trails
Highway.
That
has been in the process for a long time.
They actually have a
plan just of the City of Kansas City.
You can see a piece of
that there where they divided into small segments.
This segment
happens to be almost two thirds of a mile.
It gives its
location, what its significance and issues
are, where it
connects, and the opportunities that lie along
that.
We are in the process now of working with
the Mid-American
Regional Council and the National Park Service
to fund a
landscape architect to begin doing that in
places like Sugar
Creek, Independence, Raytown, and Johnson
County.
Soon we will
have a book just like this and you can find
this on the city’s
website of what that plan and where that trail
will eventually
be.
So there is the original trail through South
Kansas City and that
yellow and red dotted line.
The green, light green, and orange
is where the proposed and actually developed
hiking/biking trail
is.
As you can see, the trail largely cuts through
Kansas City
at a southwest angle.
The problem is Kansas City’s largely laid
out on a north, southwest, west grid.
As I said, you’re often
going through people’s homes, yards, businesses
so you have to
sort of build around that and connect to,
and what we’re really
attempting to do, is connect to those remaining
historic sites,
buildings, graves, wagon ruts, things of that
nature.
This shows
the segments that are built so far or proposed
in their mileage.
So Hickman Mills, for example the junior high
there, there’s
hiking/biking trail.
There’s large cut out silhouettes in steel
that show the emigrant experience.
A lot of people call them
pioneers.
I think the actual historical term is emigrants.
People were immigrating to a foreign land.
Got to keep in mind
they were going to Sante Fe, California, and
Oregon before they
were really parts of the United States.
This is at Schumacher
Park along 93rd Street in South Kansas City
as it was being
built.
That section of trail is now built.
It will connect right
into the Cerner property at 435, a very unique
project.
This
will be called the Powder Mill Bridge right
at Bannister Road.
The bridge is almost done.
It will be the nation’s first
pedestrian only bridge built specifically
over an interstate for
a national historic trail.
There will be a big ribbon cutting
for that next June and we hope to have a lot
of dignitaries from
around the country for this because national
historic trails
by-in-large are administered by the National
Park Service.
Next
year is the 100 anniversary of the National
Park Service so we
hope to have a lot of festivities around this,
the first of its
kind in the nation type of thing.
Hart’s Grove is a really important site.
If you know the old
Bannister Mall area where the Home Depot is,
just behind that
there’s a little creek and it's called Hart’s
Grove.
Hart’s
Grove was generally one of the first campgrounds
people would
come to one day out of Independence.
People such as the Donner
party, for example, camped there.
It is interpreted and it is in
a park setting.
This was built before it was an interstate.
It
was U.S. 71.
It was part of the realignment of those highways
down there a number of years ago.
There is a pedestrian bridge
there and of course Scott Park in South Kansas
City.
This shows
the complexity of getting across a big interstate
system but it
is being done.
Alex George Lake and Gambrel Track Park has
a
little bit different surface.
We’re always looking at a variety
of surfaces, whether it's paved, whether it's
stone, crushed
gravel, dirt, you’ll see all different things.
Of course, I’ve
spoken about Red Bridge already.
Avila University has really
seized upon this.
They’ve built the trail along the south
side
of their campus where the three trails went.
Now they’re
building completely around the campus to have
hiking and biking
opportunities for their students and people
in the neighborhood.
Jumping back up the actual jumping off point,
we see Sugar Creek
and Independence.
I tend to think of them as one since
Independence really surrounds Sugar Creek.
River Road is more or
less the trail.
There is a proposed route to take you up that
to
what’s now called Mill Creek Park where
the green line begins
down to McCoy Park which almost takes you
to the square.
There
is actually a hiking/biking trail already
built there.
At the
north end of that, at Mill Creek Park, there
is a proposed
development to build 50 duplexes for senior
citizens so we have
ready made almost probably 100 new people
that will live adjacent
to the trail with easy access to the Truman
Library, the
Independence Square, parks, and the national
historic trail
experience right in their backyard.
Other potential segments, obviously Blue Ridge
Boulevard through
Raytown, is the trail.
The trail followed the high land between
the Little and Big Blue, the Blue Ridge as
it's called.
The
wagons didn’t want to get caught in the
muck.
They didn’t have
paved roads so they tended to stay to the
high ground and you can
see it's coursing to the southwest out through
Johnson County.
There’s the Blue Ridge Boulevard section.
The City of Raytown is
already building that 51st to 59th Street
section.
The 59th to
63rd extensions will be part of that redevelopment
that the City
of Raytown announced about a month ago.
It’s going to completely
realign how Blue Ridge and 63rd come together,
redo all the store
fronts, the sidewalks.
It's going to be a whole new experience
in downtown Raytown.
Of course, the Independence route there is
the southern route
coming out through Johnson County and the
Westport Route is what
you see the purple line up to the north.
They come together at
Gardner and then the separate again.
The Sante Fe Trail
continues to the southwest towards Baldwin
City whereas the
Oregon and California Trails turn west towards
Lawrence and
Topeka before they head up into Nebraska.
That little section
was called the Eye of the Needle.
Pretty much everyone who was
anyone heading west, half a million people,
went through that one
little section of trail there at the Gardner
Junction.
You can see the big challenge is the way Johnson
County’s laid
out which is largely cul-de-sacs and dead
end streets.
It's very
difficult to actually build trail through
the neighborhoods so
we’re looking at alternatives and again
probably following
waterways.
Tomahawk Creek and Indian Creek already have
trails.
They’re very close to where the actual historic
trail is.
Congress does allow for as close as is practicable.
That is
really close and we’ll probably use those
portions to punch
through Johnson County.
Then, of course, there’s the other route
that takes you down
through downtown Westport following Wornall
Road down to Avila.
That was another wagon road on the way out
of town.
So our
future trail considerations, there’s value
in having a plan.
The
City of Kansas City, as you’ve seen, is
far far ahead because
they’ve had a plan for a long time.
There are potential trail
alignments in the proximity of the historic
route.
There are
lots of trail alignments that we could propose.
The Katy Trail,
for example, and what I’m going to talk
about in a little bit,
trail along the Missouri River.
The possibility of connecting
the other national historic trails, not just
the Lewis and Clark
Trail with the Three Trails but further north
up into Saint Joe,
you run into the Pony Express Trail.
Father north from that,
once you get to Council Bluffs, you run into
the Mormon Pioneer
Trail.
Heading back out to Saint Louis and down the
Mississippi
you run into the Trail of Tears.
Missouri has bits and pieces of
at least six national historic trails which
makes it unique in
America.
It's the only state to have that distinction.
Then
there’s the feasibility factors, access
and right of way.
We’re
fortunate that a lot of the modern roads in
Kansas City follow
very close to the original route so there
is existing right of
way to do this.
The other piece that we’ve been tackling
over the last many years
is jurisdictional interest.
Ten years ago, 12 years ago when I
really started doing this as a full time endeavor,
I couldn’t
really get anyone anywhere to return a phone
call.
Now I have
mayors and city council people and even congressman
and state
legislatures calling me wondering how we can
get this funded and
how we can get this done which leads us to
the biggest issue
funding.
It’s a multimillion/multiyear project.
Just that
bridge alone over Red Bridge was a $27 million
project.
The
bridge of 435 is a million dollar project.
It's not inexpensive
as trails sound.
It actually costs a lot more, especially
considering we have to deal with an urban
environment to get this
done.
So I’m going to show you a few of the current
projects underway
in the Sixth District before I jump back up
to the Missouri
River.
The Sixth District of Kansas City, of course,
the Cerner
project is well underway.
They’ve really done a great job of
getting that going.
I know the neighborhood is really excited.
It was a part of Kansas City that was once
great.
It sort of
started falling apart in the 80s and now here
we are in 2015 with
a plan to revive it.
The Powder Mill Bridge, which I mentioned,
is just about complete.
There are some final inspections and
some final little minor things being done
but for the most part
if you drive by there today it looks very
very close to done.
The green way just to the west of 435 along
Bannister Road,
there’s a plan to take that trail on down
the hill towards
Highway 71.
At Red Bridge and Holmes, there’s a shopping
center
at the southwest corner that is being redeveloped
and that
sidewalk will be widened to 10 feet wide and
take you all the way
down to Sante Fe Trail Drive which takes you
over to Avila.
There are, of course, as I mentioned a lot
of historic sites and
interpretive sites that can be seen.
Really what we’re
attempting to do with this hiking/biking trail
is to connect
those.
There’s a lot of kind of dead space in between
where the wagons
were just trudging along until they came to
the next stop.
Places like the Rice Tremonti House in Raytown
or Cave Springs,
which was a campground in Raytown, or the
Independence Square
where they were getting outfitted, or Gardner
Junction where they
were making their choice to go southwest,
west, or northwest.
As
you can see, the entire metro area is really
just sprinkled with
these great historic sites.
Maybe things that you don’t think
about as a trail.
The Shawnee Indian Mission for example, one
of
the reasons Westport is where it is was that
McCoy was
intercepting traffic from the Shawnee Indian
Mission of American
Indians going to Independence to trade.
They were a lot closer
to Westport, obviously, and this was a place
they could stop to
get trade goods.
There are the interpretive sites that we have
so far and a lot more on the drawing block
that are coming soon.
There are different kinds of signs that we’ve
been enacting all
over town that you’ve probably seen from
stone monument signs to
street signs to even the great Daughters of
the American
Revolution who really were the first to endeavor
to mark the
trail.
That marker there in the lower right corner
is at
Schumacher Park along 93rd Street.
It’s been there since 1909,
as has the one at Cave Spring, as have a number
of others in the
metro area and all across the country.
The DAR is still a
partner with us and they have helped fund.
For example, on the
lower left there, the national historic standard
road sign, they
funded the posts for that.
Those are in Sugar Creek.
Those were
about $7,000 for the posts that the DAR paid
for.
The signs
themselves are funded by the National Park
Service.
There are
grants available for communities.
If you live in a community,
say in Johnson County, where we don’t currently
have any signs, I
would love to talk to you about how we might
be able to get them,
but pretty much the Missouri side we already
have it all signed,
or, as is the case with Kansas City, we have
the signs purchased
and they’re waiting to be installed.
These are what the
different types of signs look like.
It tells you when you’re on
the original route.
It tells you when on a hiking trail section.
It points you to the historic sites.
Again, it's about economic development.
Many people come to this
area seeking out an Oregon Trail or a Sante
Fe Trail or a Lewis
and Clark or California Trail experience.
Prior to the last
couple of years, it's been very difficult
to deliver that to
them.
We think now with concerted sign packaging
that someone
will be able to get in their car, and hopefully
one day their
bike or their hiking shoes, and do this without
even need of a
map.
We have our currently installed National Park
Service
interpretive panels; again the National Park
Service is a partner
in all that we do.
They not only fund the signs but they
actually have graphic designers and layout
people and
manufacturing facilities where all of these
things are created.
We often write them here locally and select
the images for them
but then they’re actually laid out in the
Park Service offices in
Sante Fe.
Back up to the Missouri River, there’s the
Wayne City Landing as
envisioned roughly 1840s.
You can still see the natural wharf
there if you know where you’re looking.
It's kind of buried in
the woods these days along the riverfront.
As I mentioned
earlier, that is largely Lafarge.
I think today it's called
Talon Corporation.
The name changes from year to year.
At the
top of the hill where the actual town of Wayne
City was, on
Lafarge’s/Talon’s property, is a little
park where we commemorate
what the Wayne City Landing was.
Very nearby was an island where
Lewis and Clark camped.
So this is a special spot where four
national historic trails all come together.
A little father south I mention the original
route signs that are
up.
These are in Raytown.
The Rice Tremonti Home of course was
a famous stop on the trail.
The cabin there in front, in case
you’ve never been there, was Aunt Sophie’s
cabin.
Aunt Sophie
was the Rice family’s slave.
She is mentioned in many trail
journals as a person who cooked for people
along the trail and
they could get hot meals.
Just to the south of there is where
Cave Springs was where people often camped.
They also camped
there on Dr. Rice’s farm.
It was hundreds of acres in those
days.
At 85th and Manchester is a great little piece
of trail if
you go out there.
It’s just off Blue Ridge Boulevard behind
the
Blue Ridge Baptist Church.
There is about 150 meters of very
deep swell going up the side of the hill.
There used to be more.
The Blue Ridge Baptist Church decided to build
a soccer field on
top of where the rest of the trail used to
be.
We couldn’t
really do anything to stop them.
The one thing the National
Trails Act really lacks is legal jurisdiction
to stop private
landowners from doing what they want with
their property.
Luckily, the swell’s there, pronounced Wediwelt
Swells for the
Wediwelt family who formerly owned them, are
now owned by Cave
Springs and soon to be transferred to the
City of Kansas City as
a park.
Of course, at Hickman Mills, I’ve shown
you some pieces there.
Schumacher Park and New Sante Fe at 123rd
and State Line.
New
Sante Fe was actually a town during the trail
ear.
It is 123rd
and State Line right where Kansas City and
Leawood come together.
That was the end of the United States.
That was your last
chance to get provisions before you headed
off into Indian
Territory.
The City of Olathe has really seized upon
this idea.
They’ve spent millions of dollars in developing
their trail
resources.
One of the places they bought a number of
years ago
was the Lone Elm Campground.
It was at the time a lone elm.
It
is now a lot of trees but people would camp
there in their wagon
trains.
They developed it into a sports facility,
soccer fields,
softball fields, things of that nature, but
they also set aside a
lot of acres to interpret the trail history
that was there.
Other assets that they have there in town
are the Mahaffie
Stagecoach Stop which they beautifully restored
which has tens of
thousands of school children go through it
every year.
They
built a $3 million education center adjacent
to it with brand new
soccer fields across from it.
So now they really almost have
year around tourist going through there.
These soccer families
come from all over the country.
They’ve got hours between games.
What else are they going to do but go across
the street and
learn about the trail history of Kansas City.
It was a stroke of
genius as far as I’m concerned with what
the City of Olathe did.
And then, of course, the western edge of our
project area, the 40
mile swath the Gardner Junction Park.
I’ll skip over some of
this largely because I know a lot of you probably
want to go see
the baseball game.
I want to really get up to where we are today
with economic development and what we might
do along the Missouri
River.
Outdoor recreation, obviously, is a huge piece
of the
economy, 646 billion dollars a year, and 62
percent of the people
who recreate outdoors plan an overnight stay
spending an average
of $124 per night.
Businesses along trails have seen substantial
increase in spending from 34 to 41 percent
increase in two years.
A substantial piece of that is international.
One of the case
studies the National Park Service undertook
is a thing called the
Overmountain Victory National Historic Trail,
something I’m sure
hardly any of you have heard of but a very
important piece of
American History.
The British during the Revolutionary war
announced that they were going to march onto
the west side of the
Appalachians and burn the farms.
Well the guys on that side
didn’t really take too kindly to that.
Of course, they had been
hunting squirrels and rabbits with muskets
so they had really
great accuracy so they marched over the mountains.
They mustered
up.
The marched hundreds of miles to Kings Mountain
South
Carolina where they defeated the king’s
men.
It was really the
beginning of the end of England.
That was really the turning
point of the war.
Thomas Jefferson often referred to it as the
most important battle of the war.
Well it is commemorated today
as a national historic trail.
As you can see from the numbers,
overall 20 percent repeat visitors in a two
year period.
Almost
22 percent were unplanned visits.
An average of $49 per person a
day in spending and 43.7 percent of all spending
were visitors
from outside the county visiting.
People are following these trails.
They’re learning these
stories.
It's our job as historians and as activists
to really
promote these as an economic development tool
which is what the
National Park Service has done in this case
study.
A little
closer to home, the Katy Trail, 240 miles
long.
I think
everybody is very familiar with it.
There are 400,000 visitors a
year.
Total economic impact of about $18.5 million
a year
supporting 367 jobs with $5 million in payroll
with an average
daily spending of $57 per person.
Very substantial.
We’re
building that in Kansas City.
We’re talking about connecting
that with our three national historic trails.
We’re going to
talk about building that out along the Missouri
River and I think
really reinvigorating a lot of communities
that are struggling in
places.
One of those communities is Sugar Creek.
This is the 291 bridge
at LaBenite Park.
There is a 1.7 mile hiking trail along the
riverfront there.
I’m sure maybe some of you have been there.
There is a great boat launch.
This is right near the boat
launch.
That interpretive panel talks about Lewis
and Clark.
This is the trailhead at the far east end
of the parking lot that
heads off down the Missouri River.
There’s more interpretation
scattered along the way.
As you can see, I was out there I think
Friday.
What a beautiful setting.
There were people out there
fishing.
There were people out there bow hunting.
There were
people out there hiking.
There’s a nice park bench overlooking
the river with some interpretation.
There are picnic facilities
out there.
A little further west the Wayne City Landing.
Last
year we had the Eagle Scout Project built
the Wayne City Landing
monument.
It's the entrance to the park.
The park itself has a
winding trail with interpretation and park
benches.
At the far
north end there at the fence is an overlook
of the Missouri
River.
There again is the Wayne City Landing as it
looked on one
of the interpretive panels there talking about
Lewis and Clark of
course.
One of the ways in which we draw people to
a lot of these sites,
geocaching has become extremely popular.
We’re getting a lot of
people that may not know about or care about
our national
historic trails visiting these sites because
they do care about
geocaching.
They are learning a lot along the way and
they wind
up following an entire trail because of geocaches.
As you can
see, when we build a site like this it takes
a lot of people and
a lot of effort.
That’s just a short list of the partners
that
were involved in this one park.
That one park alone took well
over a dozen different partners to accomplish.
There’s the overlook looking down on the
Missouri River just a
couple of days ago.
Now when you leave Wayne City Landing there
are signs intermittent along River Boulevard
and other places
that tell you that you are on the original
route for the next two
and a half miles.
More or less, River Road was planned to get
you to the Independence Square and so we know
exactly where it
was.
We were surveyed very early.
The early Jackson County
history of 1878 talks in great detail about
Wayne City Landing
and about the River Road route into the Independence
Square.
One
of the great things that has happened, I think,
along the way is
that the old Gilpin Town was a plotted town
that never really
happened.
Gilpin was a guy who dreamed big.
He thought he was
going to intercept the trail traffic heading
to Independence
there in Sugar Creek and create something
named for himself.
He
wound up basically absconding with the money
and going to
Colorado but there was a little building left
behind.
The major
of Sugar Creek bought that building and created
a winery.
So
what you see there in the background are his
grapes and the
building behind that is the actual winery,
Mallison Manor Winery.
The trail is going to pass right in front
of it when it's built.
It's just like Rocheport.
Just like Herman.
It's connecting up
historic sites but entrepreneurs are coming
along and putting in
the winery, the brewery, the bed and breakfast,
the bike rental
facility, the campground, the other things
that before the Katy
Trail didn’t exist in central Missouri.
At the north end of Independence is Mill Creek
Park.
That is the
beginning of the trailhead.
That trail was built a lot of years
before we ever asked the City of Independence
if we could use it
for our purposes.
It isn't on the National Historic Trail.
The
road you see there in the front runs to the
west.
That’s called
Jones Road.
It goes up a couple hundred meters up the
hill to
River Boulevard.
The houses are very close to River Boulevard.
It was very impractical to build a hiking/biking
trail so we
asked the City of Independence if we could
mark the existing
trail they’d already built to connect McCoy
Park and Truman
Library to Mill Creek Park three quarters
of a mile, if we could
mark that as our national historic trail because
congress, as I
said, does allow for us to have trail as close
as is practicable
to the original route.
This was as close as was practicable.
There it is at the entrance of the Truman
Library at Highway 24.
When I turned around that’s the next picture
I took so you can
see it's connecting up other great sites.
I should mention Harry
Truman himself, before he was a senator, before
he was vice
president, and before he was president, was
county judge.
He was
also the Missouri chapter president of the
American Pioneer
Trails Association.
He was involved in trails all the way back
in the 1920s.
I have great video footage that I found of
him on
YouTube out in Lexington, Missouri in 1929
dedicating the Madonna
of the Trail Statute and giving a speech that
day.
His
grandfather, Solomon Young, who actually owned
Cave Springs at
one time in Raytown in the 19870s, was a trader
on the Sante Fe
Trail.
His wife Bess’ grandparents were also involved
in the
Sante Fe Trail trade.
So even a guy like Harry Truman has very
deep trail roots.
Pretty much anybody who was in this area early
on did.
This is at McCoy Park there across from the
Truman Library.
This
was a gazebo that was already in use by the
City of Independence.
They rented it out for picnics.
As you can see its right next
door to somebody’s house and the people
who lived there really
got tired of having hundreds of cars and lots
of noise so the
city allowed us to retrofit that.
What you’re seeing are six
exhibit panels that talk about the trail.
That is our McCoy park
trailhead.
That is one of the stand ups that shows the
map of
the trail through Sugar Creek and Independence.
Up on the Independence Square, there are little
pieces of history
hidden everywhere.
This is Dave’s Bakery and Deli where I had
lunch today.
Right next to that is an old plaque.
I think it's
from 1952 or thereabouts.
It's in stone.
What it talks about is
in 1949 some guys with great entrepreneurial
spirit built the
very first railroad west of the Mississippi.
It ran from the
Wayne City Landing to the Independence Square.
Its roundabout
was right in front of where Dave’s Bakery
is today.
It was mule
drawn.
It wasn’t steam or coal or anything like
that.
It was
drawn by mules.
There’s about a four percent grade all the
way
to the Square.
Of course, there’s Harry Truman in front
of the
Independence Courthouse and there on the lower
left hand corner
is his courtroom.
But of course the lawn is marked with all
sorts of monuments to the trail.
The Oregon Trail began here.
The Sante Fe Trail ran right past here.
This was also where a
lot of people were jumping off during the
California gold rush.
Jumping back over to the Westport Landing
and the route that
we’re sitting on, the Westport Route, the
Town of Kansas was
founded at basically what’s now the River
Market area.
There’s
the Town of Kansas Bridge.
I’m sure all of you have been there.
There are a number of interpretive panels
there on the upper part
and on the lower part on the walking trail
portion as well but
you can see the cut that was cut through the
bluffs to get goods
from the river up into Westport and the town
grew up around it.
If you look back past the railroad tracks,
past the flood wall,
back along the treeline, you can see some
stones.
That’s some of
the old foundations from the Town of Kansas
back from the 1840s
and 50s.
Still there.
Barely viewed these days but that’s
viewed from up on the Town of Kansas Bridge.
Walk out to the end
and turn around and look back and you’ll
see it.
There’s the
Town of Kansas Bridge from down below next
to the flood wall.
Of
course there’s a lot of interpretation along
the Berkley
Riverfront Park over towards the casino talking
about all the
different trails, talking about the flora
and fauna, and again
the Lewis and Clark expedition was a military
expedition.
It was
also a science expedition.
Lewis was a trained botanist.
He was
trained in medicine.
He was trained in astronomy.
He was a very
learned man.
He was personal secretary to Thomas Jefferson
so
this was a science and exploration voyage.
They did camp very
nearby.
Now one of the problems we have when we build
new stuff is some
people like to break it.
I took this on Saturday.
This is an
exhibit panel about the different fish of
the Missouri River.
Actually somebody looked like they tried to
put it back together.
It was very windy on Saturday and it blew
over as I walked past
and so I noticed it.
And then of course the City Market itself
was very lively Saturday when I was down there.
It is
commemorated for its role in helping to build
Kansas City.
Of course, of the great amenities that we
have in Kansas City,
probably one of the greatest museums in the
country, is the
Steamboat Arabia which was taking goods up
to Nebraska City to
sell in Nebraska City for people heading west
on the trail.
Nebraska City was another jumping off point.
It sunk up in now
what’s Leavenworth County and was dug up
a number of years ago.
There’s a great museum there now.
There’s the restored
paddlewheel from that ship.
That’s all part of this national
historic trail experience along the Missouri
River.
Of course,
this is in the River Market.
You’ve probably seen this building.
The entire city block is a large Lewis and
Clark mural.
Up at
Case Park overlooking the junction of the
two rivers is a great
wonderful Lewis and Clark statue.
Of course, we’re
reincorporating other history.
The WPA actually built that park
in 1941.
There you are looking down at the Missouri
River and
off towards the junction with the Kansas River.
That’s on one of
the exhibit panels along Berkley Riverfront
Park.
I wish I could
take claim for that photo because it's such
a great one but I
didn’t.
I think it really captures the ethos of what
it is I hope
to accomplish, not just with the three trails
but with what we
could do with the Lewis and Clark Trail.
Of course Kaw Point Park on the Kansas side
has really gotten
strange.
They’re building a brand new warehouse.
It's really
hard to access now.
It was always hard to access.
It's getting
even harder.
It was great today.
I was out there.
There were
canoeists launching that afternoon using the
river as I kind of
envision it being used in a more widespread
fashion.
Of course,
there’s the silhouette of Lewis and Clark
and all the men and
women who were with Lewis and Clark are commemorated
in the
amphitheater there.
Their names are on each of the stones.
Up further in Parkville, there’s a lot of
riverfront development.
This is one of the old railroad bridges that’s
been retrofitted
for the hiking trails in the park, some of
the exhibits, and of
course the riverfront itself, a great couple
mile long trail.
The question in my mind is, and I have pictures
from Atchison and
Saint Joe as well but I’m not going to go
that far north, how do
we endeavor to connect all that in a meaningful
fashion.
I think
all of you folks are keenly interested in
the Missouri River and
I think it really will fall to you and our
local Lewis and Clark
chapter to continue this great work because
we’re going to build
this 40 mile section.
The Katy Trail’s going to get built.
Sections, as you can see, of the Missouri
River Trail are already
built.
But what a great economic engine, what a great
recreational tool, what a great opportunity
for clean up for
further habitat restoration.
I could go into all the different
monies that are available from fish and wildlife
service from
different federal agencies that could be used
for habitat
restoration, for interpretation, for actually
building this
stuff, but I won't take up any more of your
time.
I know there
are probably a lot of questions and I’ll
conclude with that.
