Santa Fe Trail Research Papers (original) (raw)
The Last Chance Store in Council Grove, Kansas was constructed by the Westport firm of Northrup & Chick in the spring of 1857. It was built to trade with travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and with the Kaw Indians. Construction of the Last... more
The Last Chance Store in Council Grove, Kansas was constructed by the Westport firm of Northrup & Chick in the spring of 1857. It was built to trade with travelers on the Santa Fe Trail and with the Kaw Indians. Construction of the Last Chance Store was completed in 1857 and the building has remained relatively intact and unchanged for nearly 160 years. Over this time the building has been occupied fairly continuously by a series of more than 15 businesses or families. The building had several advantages which were conducive to preserving artifacts from its various inhabitants. First, the building possessed a cellar under its south half with a clay floor that was periodically prone to flooding and then cracking when it dried out. This allowed objects to fall into the cracks and be preserved. Second, the main floor had a crawl space beneath a little over half its north side. The crawl space had no access doors or windows, and it appears that except for a few very short intervals this subfloor area has remained isolated. Third, the owners of the site since 1955 have been dedicated to preserving the site and its history. Therefore, a large number of artifacts were found at the site, which represents the entire span of its historic occupation. Archeological excavation at the site was the focus of the Kansas Archeological Training Program (KATP), in June 2016.
Buckley, Jay H. “William Clark, the Southern Plains Fur Trade, and the Santa Fe Trail.” Proceedings of the 2015 Fur Trade Symposium, Bents Fort and the Southern Fur Trade (La Junta, CO/Denver, CO: Bent’s Old Fort National Historic... more
Buckley, Jay H. “William Clark, the Southern Plains Fur Trade, and the Santa Fe Trail.” Proceedings of the 2015 Fur Trade Symposium, Bents Fort and the Southern Fur Trade (La Junta, CO/Denver, CO: Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site/National Park Service Denver, 2017): 82-111. ISBN: 978-0-692-79888-1
The Last Chance Store was built in 1857 to trade with Santa Fe Trail travelers and Kaw Indians, who lived just south of Council Grove. Apparently it served in that capacity for only brief periods between 1857 and 1859. In the early 1860s... more
The Last Chance Store was built in 1857 to trade with Santa Fe Trail travelers and Kaw Indians, who lived just south of Council Grove. Apparently it served in that capacity for only brief periods between 1857 and 1859. In the early 1860s the building became a temporary residence for three families at different times. It also served as a barracks and headquarters for a cavalry unit, temporarily stationed in Council Grove during the Civil War: The building was used as a grocery store in the latter half of the 1870s, a corn crib, the permanent residence of the William Tolbert family for 50 years, and then a historic site. During its 160-year lifetime the structure remained relatively intact and unchanged. The last private owners from 1955 until 2015 were dedicated to preserving the site and its history. Once in state ownership, an archeological investigation was undertaken by the 2016 Kansas Archeology Training Program field school. The large number of artifacts found during the project represent very nearly the entire span of its historic occupation.
For more than a century the Padilla Monument, has supposedly marked the site where Father Juan de Padilla was killed in 1542. However, it is instead most likely an ancient Indian guide, or landmark, erected along a prehistoric Indian... more
For more than a century the Padilla Monument, has supposedly marked the site where Father Juan de Padilla was killed in 1542. However, it is instead most likely an ancient Indian guide, or landmark, erected along a prehistoric Indian trail which passed through the area.
Margaret Purser and Mark Warner, eds. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln. 2017