At Lone Elm, a branch of Cedar Creek provided the wood, water, and grass that made it a favored trail campground for traders bound for Santa Fe, emigrant families bound for the West, mountain men, missionaries, entrepreneurs, opportunists, and other travelers during the 1840's. Like other frontier campgrounds along waterways, the campsite stretched linearly up and down the stream, where travelers staked out places for their wagon trains and for the livestock, horses, mules, and oxen that accompanied them. In the 1820's this area had been a substantial body of trees, likely all elms, known to Santa Fe Trail travelers as Round Grove, but over two decades the grove was consumed for campsite firewood until only one great elm remained. That lone tree, standing by itself on the prairie near the little creek, became a memorable landmark, yet by the late 1840's even wood was scarce there, and the famous elm itself died in 1849.