The Big Blue River crossing in the 3-Trails Corridor was used by many residents and travelers moving along the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California trails, and swales near the western end of the bridge in Minor Park preserve traces of nearly 175 years of footprints, hoof prints, and wagon wheels that passed westward. Among those associated with this history were Alexander Doniphan, who negotiated the 1837 Platte Purchase, served in the Missouri militia, refused to execute Joseph Smith, Jr., led an expedition during the Mexican War, helped found William Jewell College, and served in the Missouri General Assembly; Susan Magoffin, one of the first European American women to travel the Santa Fe Trail, who crossed here in 1846 and recorded her journey in a diary later published as Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico; John Calvin McCoy, who established a trading post that became Westport, created Westport Landing, and helped found the town that became Kansas City; and Felipe Chavez, a Santa Fe merchant whose business as broker, banker, investor, wholesaler, and retailer depended heavily on trade along the Santa Fe Trail. Also part of this story were Hiram Young, who rose from slavery to become a major Missouri wagon manufacturer whose wagons used this road and crossing; Jim Bridger, mountain man and explorer who built Fort Bridger on the Oregon-California Trail; Amache Prowers, daughter of a Cheyenne chief, who lived for a time in Westport and later received land after the Sand Creek Massacre while her husband supplied Santa Fe Trail travelers from Boggsville; James P. Beckwourth, born to a slave mother and later freed, who trapped in the West and led the first intact wagon train into California on the Beckwourth Trail during the Gold Rush; Alexander Majors, a leading overland freighter whose firm of Russell, Majors, and Waddell operated the Pony Express before failing; and Kit Carson, the frontiersman, scout, and guide whose career included Santa Fe Trail trade, western expeditions with John Fremont, and service as a U.S. government courier and scout during the war with Mexico.
