In the spring of 1823 the great Santa Fe trade from Missouri originated at Franklin, now Booneville, in Howard County, where the first enterprise was planned and outfit procured. It being an experimental trip, the stocks conveyed were slender, comprising a cheap class of goods, which were carried on pack mules and in wagons. This expedition proving a success, and awakening bright prospects of wealth, it was repeated the following year on a more extensive scale. In 1825 the Government, having its attention directed to this new channel of commerce by Colonel Benton, employed Major Sibley to survey and establish a wagon road from the Missouri State line to Santa Fe, which has been a great thoroughfare of travel ever since. The trade increased slowly but gradually during the next twenty-two years, the value of its exports averaging from $50,000 to $100,000 per annum.
The Indian tribes through whose territory the trains had to pass soon became very troublesome. They would suddenly swoop down upon the unsuspecting encampment of the transporters, drive off their draft animals, rob the wagons and frequently destroy lives. As but few traders in those days started out with more than two or three wagons, considerations of safety suggested a general rendezvous, from which point they could all start together and afford each other mutual protection. A spot well timbered and watered was selected for this purpose, which has ever since been known as “Council Grove.” The caravans that thus collected here, numbered hundreds of wagons and thousands of mules, horses and oxen, and their departures over the Plains noted in the papers through the States.
The town of Independence, Missouri, was formed soon after the opening of this overland traffic and became the principal outfitting post. From 1832 to 1848 it held this commercial ascendancy and its merchants accumulated vast fortunes. In 1834 the first stock of goods was landed a little below Kansas City, at Francis Chouteau's log warehouse,
