Marking the Santa Fe Trail: Part 2

By Carol Jenkner

Education Director 

 

            The marking of the Santa Fe Trail across Kansas by the Daughters of the American Revolution grew from an idea into a project that would be years in the making. Once the idea was accepted, the next step was to enlist the help of the Kansas State Historical Society to procure a true map of the trail.

Little progress was made until 1905. By the time the project began, much of the old Santa Fe Trail had disappeared and old-timers who had known the Trail were gone. They also began to realize they were going to need appropriations from the state legislature to meet their goals.

            To finance the undertaking, the DAR began a letter-writing campaign urging their legislators in Topeka to create a bill that would provide the asked-for funding. The ladies determined that one thousand dollars would be enough to provide for the markers.

            Letters from across Kansas poured into Topeka and House Bill 486 was passed March 1, 1905. The one thousand dollars granted was earmarked “for the purpose of procuring suitable monuments.” The provision also protected the monuments creating a penalty for destroying, defacing, removing, or injuring the monuments.

            From the beginning, one thousand dollars seemed enough to buy and set nine or ten monuments across the state. Designated locations included Council Grove, Pawnee Rock and Dodge City. But as the project continued to evolve, it began to dawn on the DAR that nine or ten monuments would fall short of the markers needed to mark the trail.

The answer to my question in part one of this saga was that ninety-six markers stretch across Kansas. But there’s a mystery in this number.