Thursday, March 29, 2007

Flat Lala returns to Texas

Dear Lala, I've a box of things ready to mail to you. Please tell your teacher that I will be posting more Flat Lala stories to your blog at http://flatlala.blogspot.com. There is a CD of pictures and the letters I have written so far inside your box. I'll add a copy of this letter, too. I have so many more things to tell you but am a week past due returning Flat Lala to your school. I hope the assignment isn't over. The box is full of travel folders that Grandpa and I picked up as we returned from Indiana. Grandpa was particularly interested in the Lewis and Clark information. Grandpa comes from Eugene, Oregon. That's where Lewis and Clark ended their trip. I always thought they started it in western Missouri, but that was wrong. They started in St. Louis. The major overland trails of the West -- the Santa Fe Trail and The Oregon Trail came later and started from Kansas City. Grandpa and I found information about the Lewis and Clark Expedition all across our trip. He'd like you to look at the things we are sending you and think about men using boats, horses and their own feet to go west from Kansas clear to the Pacific Ocean. It was a hard trip, but helped people learn how big the North American continent is and how beautiful it is too. It was after Lewis and Clark found a way west that others followed them and eventually started building homes here. Those other two trails I mentioned -- the Santa Fe Trail and the Oregon Trail -- were the only roads people had to travel west. They would gather their wagons in Kansas City and Independence, Missouri, find a man who knew the trails (he was called the Wagon Master) and start the slow walk West. They had to start early in the spring, about this time of year, and hope to be through the Rocky Mountains before winter came. If they were caught in the mountains when it snowed, it could mean they all died. The wagons were pulled by horses or mules,or oxen. The men, women and children walked beside them. It was slow progress. Sometimes they would go to bed at night, after walking all day, and still be in sight of the place they camped the night before. They didn't have any Interstate highways like I-35 to get from one place to another. The Santa Fe Trail was the first trail. It went from Kansas City to Santa Fe, New Mexico, angling across what would become Kansas and Colorado into New Mexico. Later a shortcut, called the Cimmaron Cut-off would be made through the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles. The men who traveled this trail were called muleskinners. They drove large wagons pulled by mules. The wagons carried things they were going to sell in Santa Fe. In Santa Fe, they filled them up with things to sell in Kansas City. The Santa Fe Trail passed near Waverly. Local stories say Lebo, Kansas, the next town west of Waverly was founded by an Frenchman named Joe LeBo. He was one of the Santa Fe muleskinners, but he got tired of making the trip. He found a pretty place to build his house and said "I'm stopping here!" He started a business and the town of Lebo grew up around him. Lebo is about the same size as Waverly (700 people). It is a farming town today. People going to Oregon weren't going there to sell things. They were going to find new homes. They followed the Santa Fe Trail until they were well clear of Kansas City then split off to go northwest. The town of Gardner, Kansas is called "Where the Trails Divide". When I taught school there in the 1970s, the students told me there was a barn you could go to and look out the hay loft to see where the trail went. Not far from Gardner, outside Baldwin City, there are still ruts in the ground that were made by the hundreds of wagon wheels that went over the Oregon Trail. I had wanted to take Flat Lala there and get a picture of her looking at the wagon ruts but we didn't get a chance to go. Well, Flat Lala is returning to your school. I've really enjoyed having her visit. Let me know how the class project goes. Love, Grandma

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