Neosho Crossing

Crossing the Neosho River on the Santa Fe Trail was difficult because short, steep banks, soft bottoms, and unruly livestock could delay wagons and force teams to be doubled, while shouting wagoners and cracking whips filled the crossing. In 1846, Susan Shelby Magoffin observed these delays and the noisy effort of getting wagons across. In 1852, 2d Lt. William D. Whipple described the Neosho as a quick-running stream with a stony and gravelly bed, about 30 feet wide at the crossing and 18 inches to 2 feet deep, with the small trading settlement of Council Grove on the opposite west bank. The best trail crossings combined shallow water, a rock bed, and gentle slopes, and the river's shallow riffles mark the natural rock bed used by heavy prairie freighters crossing the Neosho. During trail days, the banks sloped more gently to the water's edge than they do today. American and Mexican traders hauled cloth, tools, jewelry, guns, and even canaries westward to Santa Fe and deep into Mexico, while eastbound traders carried silver, wool, mules, and hides to Missouri and the United States.

Council Grove, Kansas · United States