Advertisement
Published: September 15th 2014
Edit Blog Post
HIGHWAY SIGN
This sign is on the highway about 12 miles south of Ulysses, Kansas. The spring is located a couple of miles to the west and is accessible down a poor dirt road. It has been made a National Historic Site preserved on 84 acres. AUGUST 24, 2014 I finally made it down to Wagon Bed Spring this morning after getting lost twice. I missed the turn onto Hwy 56 out of Dodge City but quickly realized I was going wrong and turned around. When I got to Ulysses the damn highway was closed for repairs and I had to find a detour. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful except for not having any lunch again. Most places are closed on Sunday in these little farming towns. I ended up at a fairly new Hampton Inn in La Junta, Co. There is Chinese joint right next to hotel, but it was closed. A short ways up the street from the Chinaman’s is a Mexican joint called Felicia’s so I walked on up there for dinner, but it was closed too. Finally I had supper at a Subway. Tomorrow I will visit Bent’s Fort in the morning and then head over to the mouth of Royal Gorge and on up to Colorado Springs.
WAGON BED SPRING The Republic of Mexico was a brand new nation in 1821. It was the first year of their independence from Spain. For the first time settlements
JED SMITH PLAQUE
This sign is right with the other sign beside the highway. There is yet a third sign there that mentions the Mormon Battalion, but I distained a picture of it. in Northern Mexico were free to open commerce with merchants in St Louis. In 1821 a far thinking American named William Becknell pioneered what would become known as the Santa Fe Trail. It was a trade route that connected merchants in St Louis to merchants in Santa Fe. At that time settlement in America did not exist westward of the Mississippi River. All that was known about the land between St Louis and Santa Fe was that there was an opportunity for financial gain and whatever might be encountered in between ought to somehow be manageable with good luck and perseverance. To those who bravely sought to engage in commerce with Mexico what they faced was an unsettled, howling wilderness as full of peril to them as the dark side of the moon. By 1831 the trade route was pretty well established but it was still completely unsettled and it was such a tedious journey that travelers along it were constantly in search of short cuts. During the spring of that year a man named Jedediah Smith set out with a caravan of supplies belonging to the Rocky Mountain Fur Company bound for Taos. Jed was formerly a well-respected fur
JEDEDIAH SMITH
The hole here suggests there might be a spring to fill it. It appears to be recent agricultural digging. The dead trees in the background might be the site where Jed Smith was killed. Had he survived he might have gotten fair recognition as the Pathfinder instead of that pompous jackass, John C. Fremont. trapper and intrepid pathfinder who eventually became a partner in the fur company. He hung up his traps in 1830 but continued as a partner and was given the important responsibility for delivering trade goods to the annual fur rendezvous and bringing out the pelts. He sought a short cut below the Arkansas River but the caravan found themselves in a terrible water scrape. After four days without water he and his pal James Clymer left the caravan to search for water. The two of them split up to cover more ground. Jed stumbled upon water at would eventually become known as Wagon Bed Spring. As he was busily slaking his thirst a surly band of Comanche rode up and killed him. They were in a bad water scrape too. In 1846 President Polk had an agenda to extend America from sea to shining sea and declared war on Mexico to make it happen. The Mormon Battalion as they were marching off to California with their plural wives and screeching children got lost as they often did and refreshed themselves with water from this spring. Over the years of heavy immigration to the California gold fields thousands of others enjoyed
WAGON BED SPRING
Here is the wagon bed. If you were thirsty enough I suppose you could get a soothing drink without being killed by Comanche fighters. water here. It was not until the 1880s that an enterprising farmer thought to set a wagon bed into the ground to collect water like a trough that it became known as Wagon Bed Spring.
SAND CREEK MASSACRE Col. John Milton Chivington returned to Colorado as a military hero riding at the head of the First Regiment of Colorado Volunteers in 1862. It was after the Battle of Glorieta Pass in which the Confederates were driven out of New Mexico. Hero worship was adulation that he relished but the adulation lost its sheen after a short while just as his massive ego expanded well beyond his hat size. Within two and half years he was looking for another fight to soothe his itching ego and advance his political aspirations. What he sought was an adversary that could be soundly defeated at little risk to himself or his aspirations. A large band of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho snoozing away the indolent afternoons along the banks of the Big Sandy River in Southeastern Colorado fit the bill nicely. It did not matter to Chivington that they were already under the protection of the American Flag. He launched a
MASSACRE ON OTHER SIDE OF TREES
The Sand Creek Massacre Historic Site is about 25 miles up a good dirt road north of Lamar, CO. It is well worth a visit. It saddens my heart that Chivington committed that atrocity for his own political gain. He should have been strung up for it but he wasn't. brutal attack on the village at daybreak on November 29, 1864. He claimed a magnificent victory over a handful of old men who fought bravely as well over a hundred women and children were slaughtered and mutilated by his drunken men. The massacre accomplished a few notable things. It prolonged the Indian wars on the Great Plains by killing several influential peace chiefs. It strengthened the more warlike factions among the Cheyenne and made them implacable foes. When the truth about the massacre came out and Chivington was exposed as a liar and murderer it ended his political career, the bastard.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.267s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 14; qc: 47; dbt: 0.1513s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb