Newspaper Page Text
by MARTI ATTOUN
Photos by David Doemiand
Life
by the
Santa Fe
Trail
Kenneth McClintock brags about
the baked ham and the homemade bread served at
the Hays House Restaurant, but what can’t be beat,
he insists, is the local history.
Since 1857, travelers have
filled up at the Hays House
on the Santa Fe Trail. It's the
oldest continuously operated
restaurant west of the Missis
sippi, opened by Seth Hays,
great-grandson of Daniel Boone
and the founder of Council
Grove, Kan. (pop. 2,321).
“Thousands of merchants
traveled the Santa Fe Trail.
Council Grove was an inter
national trading post,” says
McClintock, a historian who
portrays Hays during Wah-
Shun-Gah Days, a community
celebration held the third week
end in June. Wah-Shun-Gah
was the last Kaw Indian chief
bom in the area.
Although canvas-covered wagons no longer
rumble along Main Street and the Neosho River, the
Santa Fe Trail still defines the town. Remnants of
the trail days can be seen at 21 historic landmarks,
including nine National Historic Santa Fe Trail sites.
“Council Grove was the most important stop on
the Santa Fe Trail,” says Don Cress, who founded the
local chapter of the Santa Fe Trail Association.
The 800-mile route was established in 1821 to
carry goods between frontier Missouri and Santa
Fe, N.M. Wagon trains rendezvoused at Council
Grove before pushing westward across the rugged
and treeless plains.
•American Profile
Page 8
“We had abundant hardwoods here to make wagon
repairs. And this was the last place to buy beans, sow
belly, and whiskey until you got to Santa Fe,” Cress
says. Travelers stocked up at The Last Chance Store,
’I;
Kenneth McClintock portrays Seth Hays.
in a windstorm in 1958, but the stump remains a
sheltered landmark, and the council and vast grove
of trees inspired the town’s name.
Council Grove also has preserved the trunks of
two other landmark trees: the Post Office Oak that
served as an unofficial post office for travelers who
left messages at its base, and the Custer Elm where
Gen. George Armstrong Custer camped while
patrolling the trail.
Other historic sites include the 1851 Kaw Mission
built by the Methodist Episcopal Church to educate
the Kaw children, the 1858 Conn Stone Store trading
post, the 1892 Farmers and Drovers Bank, and the
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Mounted units bring the spirit of the Santa Fe Trail to life during the Wah-Shun-Gah Days parade.
a one-room 1857 limestone
building that stands today.
Cress, 83, became fascinated
with trail history when he was
6. “I’d ride by all these places
on a horse to go to school,” he
recalls. “It stuck with me that
I lived where the Kaw Indians
once lived.”
Council Grove has been called
the birthplace of the Santa Fe
Trail because of the treaty signed
here Aug. 10, 1825, giving
Americans safe passage through
Osage Indian land. Gathered
in the shade of a 70-foot-tall oak,
a council of U.S. commissioners
and Osage chiefs forged the
agreement in exchange for SBOO.
The Council Oak blew down
1867 Cottage House hotel. The 1861 Terwilliger
Home was the last house that travelers passed on
their journey westward.
But the primary gathering spot in Custer’s day, and
now, is the Flays House, owned by Alisa and Rick
Paul. Along with being a grub spot, the building over
the years has served as a newspaper office, courtroom,
hotel, and church.
Paul points with pride to the original log beams,
stone fireplace, and bar. On Saturday nights, he notes,
the bottles were covered so church could be held inside
on Sunday morning.
Just as in trail times, travelers leaving Council
Grove can experience miles of tallgrass prairie in the
rolling Flint Hills. Sixteen miles south is the 11,(XX)-
acre Tallgrass Prairie
National Preserve, the
country’s only national
park dedicated to preserv
ing a remnant of prairie.
Five miles west of the
still-bustling trading-post
town is one of Cress’
favorite places. In the
quiet, he imagines a flotilla
of wagons, because etched
into the prairie here are
150-year-old wagon ruts.
“See where the grass
dips a little?” he says.
“That’s it. That’s the trail.
If you like history, it’s
here.”
Marti Attoun is a frequent
contributor to American
Profile.
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For more information,
call the Council Grove
Visitors Bureau at (800)
732-9211 or log onto
www.coundlgrove.com.