2/7 Banks Ferry house at Iowa Point Crossing
3/7 Belmont Landing on the Missouri River
Gateway Chapter
5/7 Courter-Ritchey Cemetery in Doniphan County
6/7 Iowa-Sac-Fox Presbyterian Mission
7/7 Shibley Ford Ferry replica Big Blue River
Saint Joe was a major jumping-off point for California and Oregon emigrants from 1844 into the ’60s. The Saint Joe Road ran near the Sac and Fox Presbyterian Mission on the way to cross the Big Blue River and meet the Independence Road.
Overview
Gateway Chapter protects and promotes the St. Joe Road in the City and the Northeast Kansas counties of Doniphan, Brown and Nemaha including branches from river crossings at Amazonia and Iowa Point. Doniphan’s Courter-Ritchey Cemetery contains graves from the 1849 Cholera epidemic. The Sac tribe built a log crossing on the Wolf River and collected a toll. In ’52, Francis Marshall set up a ferry service on the Big Blue River.
Leadership
Gateway Chapter Officers 2026
- President Diane Waddell
- Vice President Jackie Lewin
- Secretary Sandy Smith
- Treasurer Fred Sawin
- Preservationist Wendell Ganstrom
Current additional board members:
- Dave Berger
- Robert Corder, MD
- Sarah Elder
- Roger Gascoigne
- Susan Wesley Hartley
- Karen McClellan
- Jim McLaughlin
- Corky Smith
