The Santa Fe Trail changed for about two decades in the Kansas City area before reaching its final basic form by about 1840, and in the early 1840s it also became part of the Oregon and California Trails. From 1821 to 1827, when William Becknell and five companions from the Franklin area blazed the Santa Fe Trail, the Kansas City area was still largely undeveloped, with Fort Osage in the northeast of present-day Jackson County, the Chouteau fur trading post near the mouth of the Kansas River in the northwest, and the land still in Osage hands until the 1825 treaty. In that early period, one route ran south from near Fort Osage along the ridge east of the Little Blue River to Blue Spring in present-day Grandview, then crossed the Big Blue River near present-day 151st Street and continued toward Round Grove in present-day Johnson County, Kansas, while another ran west from near Fort Osage, crossed the Little Blue River, turned southwest through present-day Raytown, crossed the Big Blue River in today’s Swope Park, crossed the state line near present-day 79th Street, and joined the other route near Round Grove, later better known as Lone Elm Campground. From 1828 to 1839, after Independence was founded in 1827, traders increasingly bypassed the Blue Spring route east of the Little Blue River and instead followed a route south along the Blue Ridge, joining the older route west of present-day Grandview and still crossing the Big Blue near present-day 151st Street and State Line. After Westport was founded in 1834 and John C. McCoy identified Westport Landing on the Missouri River, traders unloading there could avoid the difficult Big Blue crossing, following a route south through present-day downtown Kansas City into Westport, then either turning south to connect with the older route crossing near present-day 79th Street or heading west-southwest past the Indian missions just across the Missouri line. By the early 1830s Independence had become the main outfitting point for Santa Fe traders, but by the end of the decade Westport was serious competition as outfitting expanded for the Rocky Mountain fur trade and emigrant wagon trains bound for Oregon. From 1840 to 1860, the trail system in the Kansas City area assumed its final basic pattern: the route southwest from Westport past the Indian missions remained much the same, the Swope Park crossing of the Big Blue fell out of use in the 1840s, and the route south from Westport instead crossed the Missouri line near present-day 69th Street. Out of Independence, one route ran southwest and merged near present-day 66th and Blue Ridge Boulevard, while another ran south into present-day northeast Raytown, then southwest and south again near present-day 66th Street to follow the Blue Ridge corridor to the Big Blue crossing in today’s Minor Park near Red Bridge Road, then crossed the Missouri line near present-day 122nd Street, replacing the older crossing near present-day 151st Street. These became the routes most commonly associated with the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails until the Civil War pushed the main trailheads north of the Kansas City area, and after 1865 the railroads moved the main trailheads progressively farther west.