I took this photo between Dodge City and Garden City.
Posted on 11/21/2016 4:40:02 PM PST by nickcarraway
If home is off the highway or down an old road.
Even if Oklahoma is a drive through or a fly over, there are sign posts that remain long after the path changes.
Historian Art Peters walks the old California Trail often enough to have found the wagon ruts and to have dug up the trash from a roadside that saw settlers between Fort Smith, Arkansas and the California gold fields.
One of the most famous landmarks from that era is still here, an outcropping of red sandstone named Rock Mary.
Peters says, "They estimate that about 80,000 people or more would have used the Oregon Trail, the Santa Fe Trail, and about the same number would have used this trail."
In 1849, as the first 500 settlers and a group of Army surveyors moved west, an enterprising and infatuated Lt. raced up this slope with a flag and pronounced it Rock Mary.
He hoped his act would impress this young lady, a doctor's daughter named Mary Conway.
As more wagons used the trail blazed by the first group, settlers and soldiers alike would often stop here because they remembered the story.
"It became a landmark they didn't want to miss," says Peters, "because they wanted to see where this romantic episode happened, and they wanted to carve their name on it."
Other roads replaced the California Trail at least 150 years ago.
Some people came to assume other, taller mounds nearby had to be Rock Mary until a true historical survey settled the question in 1960.
A plaque is still in place at the summit where that Lieutenant waved his flag in 1849.
Peters laments, "It's just a rock out on the prairie."
Rock Mary sits on private property a few miles west of Hinton, Oklahoma.
It's history and a treasure trove of artifacts un-earthed by Peters are housed at the Hinton Historical Museum.
I’m sure it is...Just a joke, you know...:^)
My wife is from Walton County, Florida, specifically, DeFuniak Springs.
That is my home town, graduated from Walton High, Class of 65.
I played in a National Softball Tournament in Oklahoma City...When we first got out of the van I was riding in, my hat went flying...
I asked a local if this wind was supposed to die down...
He said, “What wind?”
Well, sure it’s ok, but at 300 feet it doesn’t compare to Plymouth Rock.
I had a Toyota 4wd pickup when I lived there. One day the wind was blowing right out of the North.
Just to see what would happen, I opened both doors and put it in neutral. It eventually got up to nearly 20 with the engine off.
“They had 8 children.”
Wow, very impressed!
I took this photo between Dodge City and Garden City.
They took down the bushes so you can admire the sunset!
(There are some phone poles in the distance that used to be trees!)
It was just a joke...
The highest point in Kansas is about 4500 feet above sea level. (I am 1005 feet above sea level.) Its really not very flat, at least the parts I’ve traveled in. Lots of rolling hills.
Illinois, where I used to live is a good deal flatter than Kansas in most places.
For sure.
As I said...Just a joke...
The good restaurants in Kansas slid down to the eastern border.
You may have seen this.
http://ksoutdoors.com/State-Parks/Locations/Mushroom-Rock
Look, I’m from East Tennessee....When I got to boot camp in the military, I got kidded...They ask me how I liked wearing shoes...
I asked them what was shoes???
They looked at me funny and said that is what they put on my feet...
I said, so that’s what them things are...I hadn’t figured out how to get ‘em off...
Just a joke...Everybody gets joked...
Near Dexter, KS....
I believe you...times 3.
be an awesome place to go snow kiting!!
HAHAHA!!
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