When the Santa Fe Trail
was blazed in 1821, Independence was still
just an Osage Indian gathering place
called Big Spring. But in 1827,
Independence was created as the seat of
the brand new Jackson County. Quickly, it
became an outfitting post for merchants
bound for the West. |
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The first settlers to cut a
path to Oregon left from Independence in
1841. In the springtime during the 1840s, at
least 10,000 oxen would be grazing in the
town's fields, waiting to pull wagons west.
Settlers gathered at a spring near what is
now the National
Frontier Trails Center to fill their water
barrels before heading out. The headquarters
of the Oregon-California Trails Association
sits behind the National Frontier Trails
Center. |
Many of their "prairie
schooners" were made by Hiram Young, a freed
slave whose craftsmanship made him one of the
town's wealthiest early businessmen.
The square was the center
of the town, around which clustered many
establishments serving the emigrants:
blacksmith and wagon shops, inns and
saloons, equipment stores, markets selling
oxen, mules, and horses. Emigrants usually
camped on the outskirts of town and wagon
trains formed along Liberty and Lexington
Streets, adjacent to the old square. |
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George
McKinstry, May 21, 1846:
"I find that the best place
to fit out is at Independence oxen can be had at
24 $ pr yoke mules & Horses from 30 to 40 $
pr. head flour this year 4 $ pr bbl..."
James
A. Pritchard, April 22, 1849:
"Indipendence
is a handsome flourishing town with a high
situation, three miles from the Missouri River on
the South side And Surrounded by one of the most
beautiful & fertile countries of any Town in
the Nation. . . The Emigrants were encamped in
every direction for miles around the place
awaiting the time to come for their departure.
Such were the crowded condition of the Streets of
Ind by long trains of Ox teams mule teams men
there with stock for Sale and men there to
purchase stock that it was all most impossible to
pass along ... " |
