For the past four years, most of my westbound routes to the Rockies have taken me across the state of Kansas.  I like Kansas. The treeless high plains, sparse development, and 10 mile vistas appeal to me.  It’s so different from what I’m used to back on the East Coast.  And in western Kansas, it seems like much hasn’t changed since the 1950’s.

I’ve driven across the Sunflower State a few times and each time I like to explore a different route.  Two years ago I followed the Sante Fe trail across the southern part of the state.  This year, I decided to head up to St. Joseph, MO, visit some of the history museums there, and follow the Pony Express Highway (US 36) across the northern part of Kansas.  Here’s a map of this route.

St. Joseph, Missouri

In 1860, St. Joseph was a bustling place.  It was the end of the line for the rail road and the telegraph.  It was also the jumping off point for the California, Mormon, and Oregon trails.  The Pony Express got its start in “St. Joe” in 1860 and was headquartered there for its short 18 month history.  The Patee House Hotel (which is now a museum) housed the original Pony Express Headquarters office on its first floor.  The Pony Express Museum and the house where Jesse James was killed are also nearby in St. Joseph.

We visited all of these on our stop in St. Joe.  The Patee House has an extensive collection of historical mid west artifacts from the Civil War era up thru the early 1900’s.  It’s one of the best museums for 19 century western history.  Here as some pictures from the Patee House.

Pony Express

The Pony Express Museum is housed in a restored Home Station stable that the Pony Express used for it’s horses. It’s a small museum and has limited artifacts, but it does a good job conveying the history of the Pony Express.

Here are some interesting facts that I learned about the Pony Express.

• Three men (William Russell, Alexander Majors, and William Waddell) started the Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express Company.  It’s what we now call the Pony Express.  They had experience in freighting and wanted to secure a government contract to carry the mail from St. Joseph, MO to Sacramento, CA.
• The company hired about 100 riders, bought 400-500 horses, and contracted for about 100 Home Stations along the route.  At the time, this was a huge investment.
• The mail departed each terminus once every week.  It took 10 days to ride the 2,000 mile route from St. Joe to Sacramento by horse.
• About every 10-15 miles the rider would stop at a Relay Station and get a fresh horse.  A rider rode about 100 miles to the next Home Station.  A Home Station had stables, horses, and lodging for the riders.  The 100 miles usually took 12 hours.  At a Home Station, the rider passed the mail bag off to a new rider and waited about 10 days for a return rider. He would then take the mail from that rider and return to his Home Station.
• The bag, called a Mochilla, had four pouches to carry mail.  Three pouches were locked and the only keys to the pouches were at the terminus points.  The fourth pouch was used to carry mail picked up along the way.  The mail in the pouches was wrapped in oil cloth to protect it from the elements.
• The Pony Express was only in business from April 1860 until October 1861.  It ended once the telegram wire was strung from Omaha, NE to Salt Lake, UT.
• Most of the riders were young men in their late teens and 20’s.  They had to weigh less than 120 lbs.  William Cody (Buffalo Bill) was one of the original riders.

Here are some pictures from the Patee House and Pony Express museum.  We also stopped in Marysville, KS to visit the Pony Express Home Station museum they have there.  Marysville is the only original Home Station stable building that is still standing.

Jesse James House

Of special interest to me and my son Cavin, was the Jesse James house in St. Joseph.  The house and its internal rooms are original, but the house has been moved two blocks from where it was originally located in 1882.

Jesse and his wife moved to St. Joseph in 1882 and rented the small house from a local city councilman.  He rented the house under an assumed name of Tom Howard.  He lived there for three months with no one knowing that he was the notorious outlaw.  On April 3, 1882 a member of his gang, Bob Ford, shot and killed Jesse to collect a bounty.  He shot Jesse in the back of the head while Jesse was trying to straighten a picture on the wall.  The original bullet hole from the fatal shot is still in the wall of the parlor room.

There’s some interesting facts and memorabilia on display in the small house.  I knew most of the info because of research done by my Aunt Joan.  My great grand mother was a first cousin to Jesse and Frank James.  In the 1970’s, my Aunt published a book with William Pullen called Background of a Bandit that researched our family ties to the James family.  Visiting the house was sort of interesting to see the place where the notorious robber (and my first cousin three times removed) met his demise at age 34.

US 36 – The Pony Express Highway

From St. Joseph, we got on US 36 which follows part of the original Pony Express route.  This is a very nice road.  It’s one of those Blue HIghways that crosses the northern part of Kansas. It’s a local road that goes right through numerous small farming communities.  On this road you see first hand that farming and ranching is still a way of life for lots of people.

Small town USA is proudly on display in many of these towns.  Most have a welcome sign with some tag line like Phillipsburg – Home of the Thunder Ridge Longhorns. There’s Belleville – Home of the 1997 Kansas PeeWee Little League Champions.  They all still have their Main Streets with businesses housed in brick buildings that were built in the late 1800 and early 1900’s. There’s old theaters with marquees still showing movies. Department stores, pharmacies, insurance agencies, small markets, hardware stores, and auto parts stores line the streets.  Many have names like Ray’s Market, Gene’s Hardware, or Holmgren Insurance. In these towns, people do their shopping on Main Street and it’s very personal.  You’ll find few strip malls, very few chain or popular franchises, and no big box stores in the small rural towns of Kansas.

Here’s a video compilation of some dashcam footage that I put together while driving along US 36.

We spent a night in Seneca, KS at Stallbaumer RV Campground.  It a nice place to park and a good deal at $25 for a full hook up site with cable TV.  But, the weather that night in Seneca was not so nice.  We had a tornado watch all evening and severe thunderstorms struck us about midnight.  We had torrential rain, thunder, sheet lightning, and 50 mph straight line winds.  Thankfully there was no hail or funnel clouds.

My son doesn’t care for the severe weather that happens to crop up in tornado alley.  He would just soon avoid getting sucked up in a F5.  He’s a prudent young man who would wants to preserve the family blood line so he spent part of the night in the campground storm shelter. Yours truly, who at age 62 has come to terms with longevity, toughed it out in the RV.  I slept in my clothes and had the bug out bag ready to go just in case I heard the tornado siren.

It was a long stressful night watching the weather radar and waiting for the storm to pass.  The locals seem oblivious to it all.  The next day I overheard some locals talking about how good it was to get some rain last night.  In Marysville, when I mentioned the bad storm we had in Seneca, the docent at the Pony Express museum said – “Oh, that was nothing, it was just a little rain storm”.

On Day 2, we continued west on US 36 into Norton, KS and spent the night at Prairie Dog State Park.  What a lovely place.  It’s a nice setting situated on the hillside overlooking Sebelius Reservoir .  We had a pull through site with water and electric and a water view.  And the weather was perfect.  It’s also got quite a prairie dog colony.

This day would be our last on US 36 as we are headed to Colorado the next day.  We did about 270 miles on US 36 from St. Joseph to Oberlin, Kansas.  It’s a great roadtrip type of road.  A chance to see some history and experience a different part of the country.