The Boone's Lick Road was the first road to carry settlers far into the heart of the Louisiana Purchase from early settlements west of the Mississippi River, bearing the nation's steady westward movement and extending by 1816 to the Boonslick Country and the frontier boom town of Franklin near this location. It developed in segments between St. Charles and Franklin and the area around the famed lick, was well established as far as Howard County by 1816, and had many early variations on the east and at least three major variations on the west. It preceded its better-known extension, the Santa Fe Trail, and in later decades helped guide the routes of U.S. Highway 40 and U.S. Interstate 70. Accounts from the period portray heavy travel toward Boon's Lick, including a report that during October 1819 hundreds of wagons, carriages, and carts passed near St. Charles bound principally for that destination, while Timothy Flint wrote in 1826 that Boon's Lick was the common center of hopes and the common point of union for the people.