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.
You guys are giving me impetus to get on with my reading. Back to “Bleeding Kanssas.”
Having spent my career as a builder, I walked a lot of undeveloped land. The various jumping off points, stage coach outfitting and supply points caused a lot of spiderweb movement of the trail origination and routing. One could see that in the land where the trails survived.
Of course, the farm trails that developed did not always cause a later dirt road to follow — some just lost use and lay as marks upon the prairie fields.