Wagon ruts. Wow. It is interesting how many there were in prominent groups.
I was born before 1950 and grew up just off of State Line Road in Johnson County, Kansas. My Great Grandfather was in Maple Hill and “rode with” John Brown. I built over the well at Westport Landing adjacent to the oldest structure in Westport (later absorbed by KC).
The house I lived in in college in Lawrence still had a mini-ball in the front porch beam and the fighting prior to the war in Platte County was all around where I lived for twenty years.
There are more books on this era now than there were available in the 60s and 70s..
Ft. Leavenworth was built on the bluff. The ferry and steamboat landing was at the bottom of the bluff on the Missouri River bank. The wagons had to climb up the hill to get to the fort and also to join the Santa Fe Trail and the several connections to the immigrant trails. I think that individual wheel ruts that still exist were worn into soft rock. The hill is soil, so its a single swale worn into the hill and about 50-100 yards of it remains.
Remnants of this period still exist throughout the area, but you need to know where to look. A surprising number of ghost towns still leave a mark in the soil, a few structures exist, and most of the trails and roads have been traced. My place is on the Leavenworth - Lawrence stage road, but the stage line did not start until 1857, so I don’t know if the road was there in 1855. It’s called New Lawrence Road, so it’s not the original road. The road has sunken into the surrounding fields in places.