The Running Turkey Creek crossing and campsite served as an oasis for early trail travelers and were in use by the time of the earliest survey of the Santa Fe Trail in 1825. The campsite became the site of the Running Turkey Creek trading ranch, also known as Fuller's Ranch, in 1855. Built by Charles O. Fuller, the first white permanent resident in the area, the ranch and crossing were used continually by travelers, traders, and soldiers until 1866. Within 10 years of the ranch's opening, a post office and temporary shelters made of sod offered safety, rest, and supplies for trail travelers, and by 1871 the town of Empire was established. During the 1870s Empire grew to include a post office, school, church, doctor, pharmacist, sheriff, photographer, and a grange, but when the Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1879, it bypassed Empire and most residents moved northwest to the former site of the railroad camp, establishing the town of Galva. Before the Santa Fe Trail passed through Running Turkey Creek, the area was vast open prairie without settlements in Kansas or forested areas, and a shortage of timber led travelers to burn buffalo chips for fires. Bison once roamed the prairie until commercial trade in hides reduced the herds. In 1849, white and Cherokee prospectors bound for the California goldfields joined the Santa Fe Trail at Running Turkey Creek on May 12, then followed it to Bent's Old Fort, continued west along the Arkansas River to present-day Pueblo, Colorado, and turned north to Fort Bridger, Wyoming, to join the California Trail, establishing the Cherokee Trail. Local resident Mrs. F. J. Gateka recalled continued use of the crossing in 1874, when she saw Indians, cowboys, people in covered wagons, and other travelers on the trail.