Kansas City is home to four of the Congressionally designated National Historic Trails of the National Trails System (Oregon, California, Santa Fe and Lewis & Clark). In addition, we have several other historic trails and routes for exploration, emigration, commerce and military purposes. Within Kansas City, the Oregon, California and Santa Fe Trails are one and the same. In fact, they are designated as the Independence Route or the Westport Route in town.

The principal routes in Kansas City were Westport and Independence. Additional routes were the California road, which essentially went from Westport to Lawrence; and the connection to Fort Leavenworth and Fort Scott up the old Military Road that was unique in the trail/route history as it was built by the army instead of cut out of the dirt by a succession of wagon wheels.

As time progressed, some other choices for getting out of the area were made because there were more emigrant and commercial traffic. Traces of the original trails can be found within Kansas City at Miner Park on Red Bridge Road, at 85th and Manchester, at Harmon Park in Prairie Village, and near the Trail Center in Independence.

There's probably at least two reasons why the Overland Trails essentially began in the Kansas City:

1. The Missouri River has a bend in it here. In the early days, the travelers would come up the river as far as they could in boats, and then they had to "jump off" the river and travel over land. The bend in the river was a logical jumping-off place.

2. The western border of Missouri was an early western limit to the United States (it was became a state in 1821), and it stayed that way for over 30 years. The Missouri border was the "limits of civilization." The reason it stayed that way for so long is because of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which designated the lands west of the Missouri River as Indian territory, which established the law that no towns or supply points could be located within that area, and white people could not live west of that border. This changed in 1854 with the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This bit of legislation is probably the major reason for the Kansas City area being a "jumping-off" point than the bend in the river. It wasn't so much a matter of geography as it was politics.

Independence was the first viable jumping-off point for the Overland Trails. But it wasn't ideal. By the 1840s, the Westport Landing had emerged as the leading jumping-off point simply because it was easier. The landings in Independence are not terribly convenient: one is a big bluff. The Westport Landing, however, had a nice rock landing right at the river's edge, which is now at the foot of Grand Avenue in Kansas City.

In addition, Westport was simply farther west than Independence. And every mile counted in a wagon train … they went as far west as they could. Secondarily to that, no one had to cross the Blue River if they were outfitted in Westport and took off from there. The Blue River was a severe river crossing.

Outfitting the wagon trains was a big business: That's why these towns were so prosperous in the early days. The overland outfitting trade fulfilled all of the traveler's needs, supplying everything: foodstuffs, wagons, animals and other provisions. Most people took only the most essential needs from their homes back East, and then getting everything else they needed in Missouri.

The other reason (and perhaps the primary reason) for the prosperity of Independence and Westport was the Indian trade. The Indians who were removed in the 1830s from the eastern United States and moved to the west were given money in their treaty. That money was spent in white towns and forts.

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