Steamboats filled with west-bound travelers — fur trappers, traders, emigrants and gold seekers — stopped in Independence at regular intervals throughout 1821-1849. Once on land, travelers would replenish their supplies and prepare for the arduous journey west: 900 miles on the Santa Fe Trail and approximately 2,000 miles on the California and Oregon Trails. Santa Fe beckoned with bustling trade, California with the heady promise of gold-fueled riches and Oregon, a plentiful supply of land for farming and development.
Not only can you stop and explore commemorative trailhead markers for each trail in Independence; at a few locations, including the Bingham-Waggoner Estate, you can still see and feel wagon ruts, or swales, carved in the land by heavy traffic nearly two centuries ago.
Pro tip? For more immersive learning about the trails and their impacts on Independence, don’t miss the National Frontier Trails Museum. It’s the only museum in the U.S. that’s dedicated to the Santa Fe, California and Oregon Trails. Browse an extensive collection of artifacts and stop in at the country’s largest public research library focused on the Western trails. Here, you can sift through more than 2,000 first-person accounts of life along the trails.
Another favorite way to celebrate the trails and their important history? The city’s annual SantaCaliGon Days Festival, held every Labor Day weekend. The community festival dates back to 1940 and has since expanded into an anticipated event for attendees throughout the larger Kansas City metro area. Festivities include carnival rides, food and drink, live performances, a sprawling vendor marketplace and much more.
