National Frontiers Trail Museum

My Day at the

National Frontier Trails Museum

This picture shows the trains vs the trails in 1880

First let me say that the Santa Fe Trail information was fascinating.

I went to the museum, in Independence, Missouri, to find out about the Oregon Trail.

But the Santa Fe Trail was so unexpected that I could fill a blog post with that.

I’m setting a book, partially, on a wagon train.

Different setting for me, and I’m a little nervous about making it interesting.

But I’ve got to get these folks from Chicago to the wild west somehow, so a wagon train it is.

As I wrote, I would have said I know tons about the Oregon Trail, the American frontier and wagon trains.

Turns out I didn’t.

So a trip to Independence was born.

I ended up talking to a museum guy for a long time and he really knew everything. Very interesting guy, Travis Boley.

Then after I quizzed him for a long time, I wandered for longer still.

The Oregon Trail was first passed by fur traders on foot or horseback as early as 1811. Less than ten years after Lewis and Clark.

The trail became passable by a wagon, such as the one above, in 1836. From the most heavily traveled years, 1846-1869 it’s estimated that 400,,000 people took that trail west, including those who turned onto the California Trail. The trail declined after the Transcontinental Railway opened in 1869. Train travel was faster, cheaper and safer than wagon train travel. But these wagon trains continued in a much reduced number until 1890.

Ignore my smiling face and look in the back of that wagon, Now imagine your home. All the stuff you own. Those wagons are TINY. And you had to fit everything you owned into them.

 

As a Nebraskan, I particularly enjoyed information that concerned Nebraska.

This is info about Scottsbluff, a town in Nebraska but an actual bluff, too. Huh, never gave that much thought. But duh.

Chimney Rock is also a Nebraska landmark.

For me, when I get out of a museum, I find I’ve taken more pictures of SIGNS than artifacts. I love to read about the objects and find snapping pictures of signs helps me to remember what I saw.

I LOVED this list of all you have to carry on the wagon train.

Some interesting points: Despite what looks like a high cost, many of the things you have to bring, like oxen or mules, the wagon, the supplies, the clothes, the guns, are things you already have. And also, when you get to your destination, those things you only needed for the trip, like a team of oxen, can be sold for a good price. Yes, you need to scrape the money together to go, but once you sell it all in the high frontier market, the trip becomes mostly free.

I liked the idea of ‘jumping off points.’

Travis said the Missouri River kept getting more and more navigable (that’s a word, right?) by steamboats. As the boats kept getting farther and farther upstream, the pioneers could ride the boat farther. The jumping off points went from St. Louis to Independence, Missouri. To St Joseph, Missouri then Omaha.

Wagon train riders had to haul practical things. It was expected that someone on the train, perhaps many people, would haul their own forge. the tools were practical.

There was no room for fussy fabric or glass dishes. They needed axes and pots and wheels and parts for a broken wagon. Many more frivolous things hauled along, ended up being left behind on the trail.

I highly enjoyed my trip to the National Frontiers Trail Museum and be on the lookout for a story in my future with a wagon train. Hopefully written with a lot of good information in it.

http://www.maryconnealy.com

 

 

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23 thoughts on “National Frontiers Trail Museum”

    • One place I read, One place I read said, “Take a few pickles and some jelly and such things to break up the endless bacon. You’ll be desperate for variety by the time you’re on the trail a month.

  1. What a wonderful museum trip, Mary! I’m going to have to mark that on my “need to visit” list. Wonderful stuff! I’m like you – I take tons on sign pictures when visiting a place like this. Much faster than writing everything down. 🙂 I look forward to your future story!

  2. welcome today Mary. look forward to your wagon train story. what fascinating information. thanks for sharing.

  3. Mary, Extremely interesting museum trip. Thanks for sharing. Sometime back we were in Kearney, NE on a business trip and took the opportunity to visit a museum which happened to be built over the interstate to the East of Kearney a few miles. It contained history of the area from very early times and included the era of families moving from job to job, all within the car with belongs tied on top. They camped alongside the road for the stops in between jobs. No money to spend on hotel/motel rooms or restaurants. They were dirt poor as the saying was back then. What a hard life to live. So much to learn for all of us when we delve into history. We need to be very thankful to historians for doing the research and sharing with us. It’s too bad so many of this newest generation have no interest in the past of their families.

  4. Thanks for telling us about this. I’m planning a little Amtrak trip to the area to visit the Truman Library so this is going onto the schedule!

  5. Thank you for the interesting post. When we travel this is the type of place we visit. One museum we visited out West dealt with the trail and had similar exhibits. They also discussed sheep herding and had a shepherds wagon. It was years ago and I really don’t remember where it was, but it was along the Oregon Trail. Exhibits like this make it all so much more real for us. The Campbell’s list of what to bring is an eye opener. They really did leave their former lives behind. No family heirlooms, no furniture, no grandma’s special china to grace the new home out West. Moving by train really would have allowed some of those things to be taken with them.

  6. So glad you made it here. I live in Independence and as my kids were growing up we used the history of this place in our daily lives. We practiced what it would be like to give up our creature comforts and ride in a wagon all of the way out West. There is a wagon that goes around the city square where you can experience how rough the ride would have been. They loved to go to Missouri Town and the Trails museum. When I taught we would play Oregon Trail and the kids all loved knowing that this was where it all started.

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