The Santa Fe Trail began in 1821 when William Becknell carried trade goods west and found a ready market in Mexico, passing through this area before Independence was platted in 1827 as the county seat of newly formed Jackson County. Independence soon became the eastern terminus of the Santa Fe Trail, and for the next two decades large freighting wagons traveled past the courthouse square to and from Santa Fe. By 1835, a second road had been surveyed and built southwest of town toward Santa Fe, and beginning in the early 1840s, tens of thousands of emigrants came to Independence from the east to outfit and depart west for Oregon and California. These routes later became part of the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California national historic trails. In 1849, William G. Johnson recalled the town filled with traders, trappers, and emigrants crowding streets and stores in great haste, while overworked salesmen, mules, oxen, cracking goads, squeaking wheels, rattling chains, and the shouts of teamsters created an indescribable din.
