My first post is about the 3-Trails Corridor in the Kansas City area of Kansas and Missouri. It's the best place to start since it truly is a story where I had to chase history in order to find some answers.
Roadside Silhouettes
For over a year I drove by these strange "cutout" silhouettes on I-435 near Overland Park in Kansas:
Buffaloes, Pioneers, American Indians, Cowboys -- there are at least a dozen separate "cutouts" that stand staggered over a mile or two of the highway on the side of the road. Who wouldn't be curious about them? My curiosity got the best of me and in June of 2009 I embarked on a quest to find out what they were, what their historical significance was, and who put them there.
I started by asking my friends and family in the area if they knew anything about them. They didn't. So I googled them. Nada. I decided to go to the source and drove down the highway looking for some kind of historical marker that might indicate what they were about.
The Frontier Military Scenic Byway
Eventually I found a sign that talked about a military road. The Frontier Military Road is a scenic byway in Kansas that traces the route of an old road leading to historic places such as Fort Leavenworth and Fort Scott among others.
That must be it right? I contact the tourism person via the phone number on their website and asked them about the roadside cutouts. They had no idea what I was talking about. After a long attempt to describe them, they finally realized what I was talking about and said it had nothing to do with the Frontier Military road. But the military road is cool and someday I would like to trace the route and visit the various sites along the way.
They suggested calling the local branch of the Highway Patrol or Roadside Commission to see if they put them there. Another call, another long explanation, and another "not us" followed and I was more confused then ever.
The 3-Trails Corridor
I went back to the highway, drove up and down, and finally found another sign that might explain what they represented and who put them there.
What the heck was the 3-Trails Corridor? It's the only place where the three major westward trails converged. For a few miles the famous Oregon Trail, the lesser known but just as important Santa Fe and California Trails converge and become one trail before splitting off into three separate trails, all heading westward. Almost every American has heard of the Oregon Trail that lead pioneers to the west coast, how it was full of dangerous and deadly miles and miles of plains and mountains and desert. Many people have played the famous Oregon Trail video game (which I love) and the classroom version that preceded it.
I never realized these trails all started in this area and actually converged for awhile. The highway is built on a section of that old road that carried pioneers heading west. How cool is that? You can actually follow any of the trails in an auto tour route through the state of Kansas (and presumably the other states as well). I was totally psyched to realize that I could actually take the same path they did, just for a little while, and to know that all three trails where in one place? SO COOL!
My research lead me to the Trailside Center in Kansas City, Missouri:
Housed in an old bank that has been converted into a museum, the Trailside Center is a great place to visit to learn about the history of the Kansas City area from the 11820s to the 1870s. They have some rotating displays, but the main focus was on the Civil War Battle of Westport. I didn't know there was a Civil War battle in this area. You think of Civil War battles taking place on the east coast at Gettysburg or in the Deep South, but there were a lot of battles fought in the Midwest. However, that's a later post. 
The best resource of the Trailside Corridor isn't the displays of artifacts and maps however, it's the people who work there. The day I visited I met the lovely Javana Thompson who showed me around. We spent a couple of hours just talking about the 3 Trails Corridor and the pioneer history in the region. Like most of the people who work there, Ms. Thompson is a volunteer who donates her time simply because she loved the history of the place she lives in and enjoys sharing her knowledge with visitors. Volunteers make the world go round, they really do.
Clearly the cutouts are there to mark the 3-Trails Corridor and were erected by the Trailside Center to celebrate their history, right? After two hours of chatting with Ms. Thompson and another volunteer who stopped by, I discovered that not only did the Trailside Center not put up the cutouts, but they had no idea who did. The best guess was they had been put up in the 1950s as an advertisement for a local cowboy ranch that closed decades ago, but no one knew for sure.
Wow. Really? What seemed like a certain historical marker turns out to probably be an old advertising campaign for a place that went out of business a long time ago. The cutouts where left there to rot and have stood the test of time remarkably well, lasting long enough for people to forget who put them up.
I spent a week researching and visiting places, making phone calls and tracking down leads to discover the history of those strange roadside silhouettes, but never really found out their actual origin. Along the way I discovered two historic markers, four old historic roads, an era of history I hadn't explored (pioneer westward expansion), and a wonderful local museum that exists primarily because of volunteers and local support to keep the regional history of Kansas City alive.
This was truly an amazing adventure to uncover a mystery and although the roadside silhouettes remain a mystery at least I know the historical significance of the road they stand by. It was a wonderful chase and I'm glad I did it.
If anyone knows the origin of these mysterious cutouts and who put them there please let me know in the comments -- I'd love to find out the real history behind them!
Links:
Frontier Military Scenic Byway:
http://www.ksbyways.org/pages/Frontier/frontier1.html
3-Trails Corridor:
http://www.trailsidecenter.org/index.html
