Page 14 University Daily Kansan Monday, April 17. 1961
—Courtesy The Kansas Historical Society
JAYHAWKER GIs—Troops of the 8th Kansas Infantry, Company E, posed for this picture in 1862, as the Civil War swept the country.
Leavenworth Built To Protect Traders
By Lynn Cheatum
Fort Leavenworth, long a Kansas landmark, played a significant part in the Civil War; but the Centennial furor has partially obscured the real reason for its construction.
The fort was originally built to protect traders on the Santa Fe trail from marauding Indian tribesmen. The horses and ammunition with the caravans tempted the Indians. Traders began to appeal to the government in the middle 1820s, so federal troops were pushed westward, setting up forts along the way.
IN 1827 Col. Henry Leavenworth went up the Missouri River to the Little Platte River, to select a site for an army post. Col. Leavenworth realized that the lowlands on the east side of the Little Platte would be flooded, so he picked a spot on high ground to the north. A deep channel at the foot of the bluff provided landing facilities for river craft.
Without waiting idily for confirmation of his choice of site, Col. Leavenworth ordered a tent camp pitched. Huts of logs and bark were then built, and a stone wall was put up for protection against Indian attacks. That wall stands today.
The first Kansas post office was established at Ft. Leavenworth in 1829. It was in this year, two years
In 1830, Congress created Indian Country, which included all of eastern Kansas. There followed a great Indian migration westward, and the soldiers at the fort inherited the task of bringing the warring tribes together to bury the tomahawk.
The fort began to grow. From its original site, a branch of the Oregon trail coursed up the steep hills from Missouri. Huge corrals and supply yards for a branch of the Santa Fe trail sprang up on the nearby flats. There the traders and wagon trains began their long journey into Mexican territory.
Horace Greeley, editor of the New York Tribune, stopped at Ft. Leavenworth 102 years ago on a trip from New York to San Francisco. Greeley said.
Greeley said:
"Such acres of wagons! Such pyramids of extra axles! Such herds of oxen! Such regiments of drivers and other employes!"
Ft. Leavenworth became the site of the first capitol of Kansas, in 1854, under Territorial Governor Andrew J. Reeder. It was at this fort that "Buffalo Bill" Cody gained his first experience as a helper in the wagon and pack trains which outfitted here.
Ellie Chase's Diary Describes Woman's Early Frontier Life
(Editor's Note: A student reporter on the UDK staff recently unearthed a diary more than 90 years old. It was kept by a young woman who entered in it, among other impressions during a covered wagon trip from Iowa to Emporia, in 1781.)
Ellie Chase was a young frontier woman. She had about her the roughness of the west, but also the eternal vigor and optimism that the frontier required of those who challenged it. These qualities are reflected in the briefly kept journal that has recently been discovered.
By Tom West
ON NEW YEAR'S EVE of 1869, Ellie Chase began her diary. It was kept irregularly for the most part and then only for a few years.
Ellie was born in Michigan in 1848. Her parents moved to West Liberty, Iowa, a few years later, and there she grew up. She attended spelling school and writing school,
Dodge City Robust Frontier Settlement
poisoning and some for want of breath. But of all the ways there was to die — They all took sudden death. That was Boot Hill."
(Continued from page 4)
Dodge City staged the only openly advertised bullfight ever held in the United States. Marshall Allen Webster, master of the sawed-off shot-gun, was told that it was against State law to bullfight. He said: "Dodge City isn't in Kansas. The fight goes on."
The blizzards of 1886 broke the cattle barons. There were thousands of frozen carcasses on the range. Jan. 4, 1886, dawned a perfect day. The townpeople walked without coats. The only blizzard warning they had was the blizzard flag waving on top of the flag pole. Then the temperature dropped 50 degrees in 30 minutes. The rich became paupers overnight.
DODGE CITY is no longer the old west cow town, but it still retains the elements of a bygone era. U.S. Highway 50 was rerouted along the traditional Front Street. Boot Hill has been immortalized through the sculpture of O. H. Simpson, a Hannibal, Mo., dentist and distant relative of the trail blazer Jesse Chisholm. Simpson molded the cowboy statue that stands in front of the adobe city hall building and the steerkhead that mark the graves on Boot Hill.
The Southern Pit Bar-B-Q Pastimes
1834 Mass.
the students' favorite throughout the years . . . .
Steak Sandwich ...45
BQ Beef ...40
BQ Ham ...40
Hamburger ...25
Grilled Cheese ...25
Hot Fish Sandwich ...35
Bacon & Tomato ...40
Tenderloin ...40
Western Sandwich ...45
Cheeseburger ...30
Pizza Burger ...40
Hamburger Special ...55
(double burger with French fries)
Also Complete Pizza and Dinner Menu
neither of which seemed to help much. Her diary is rather hard to read and the spelling is very bad in places.
"Tuesday January 2, 1870. This has been a beautiful day washed today went to spelling school this evening to the Federal school house Miss Lewis Teacher... (sic)
"Wednesday 3 this is a verry pleasant sunshine day it does not seeme much like winter it is so warm and pleasant." (sic)
The diary continues with an occasional daily entry until September of 1870. During this time, she tells of a romance by letter with someone in Nebraska. She never identifies him and all entries stop on Sunday, Sept. 17, until Sunday, March 3. This March 3 entry indicates that she has been married for some time, possibly for months. The man she speaks of as her husband does not sound much like the man to whom she had been writing.
ON FRIDAY, May 19, 1871, the family started by covered wagon for Emporia, Kan. This portion of the diary is kept quite regularly, the entries being written in the evenings when they had camped for the night or when they stopped for the noon meal.
The first entry of the trip reads:
"Well here we are on our way to
Kansas. We have traveled about nine miles have stopped for dinner. Fell in with three covered wagons one from Mich. the others from Ill. Well here we are at Iowa City it don't seem possible that we are on our road to Kansas but never the less it will seem real before we get there." (sic)
They traveled southwestward, making 20 to 30 miles a day during the trip. She gives approximate distances from the towns as they pass them.
THIS TRIP was late enough in the century to insure their safety from Indians or animals, but other problems arose.
"Wednesday 14. Well here we are wading through mud looking for a new camping ground."
THEY HAD to cross several swollen streams and when they were almost to Emporia, they had to wait a day before they could cross the river.
It took them nearly a month to make the trip, from May 19 to June 16. This is the last entry in the diary except for some accounts and a short family record giving birth dates for Ellie and her husband, and for their two children.