Santa Fe Trail--Douglas County Trail Segments - Baldwin City, Kansas - U.S. National Register of Historic Places on Waymarking.com

The Santa Fe Trail (Douglas County Trail Segments) site is located in the Ivan Boyd memorial Prairie Preserve, approximately three miles east of Baldwin City, Kansas. The six and one-half acre site consists of four rutted segments that branch out like tributaries from one another. Two commemorative limestone markers were placed at the southeast corner and the northwest corner of the nominated area in 1965. A modern wooden sign marking the trail ruts stands at the southeast corner of the parcel.

The site lies directly south of the intersection of US Highway 56 and Douglas County Road 2000E. Immediately west of the county park is Robert Pearson Hall Memorial Park, a site associated with the 1856 Battle Of Black Jack, a pre-Civil War battle between pro and anti slavery factions.

Among the physical features of the site are a series of four discernable southeast to northwest trending Trail ruts which parallel an intermittent stream course defining the northern boundary of the site. At both ends of the rutted segments are native limestone markers which define the clearly evident extent of the ruts. The southern native stone marker at the southernmost extension of the ruts identifies itself as a "Sibley Survey"/"1825" marker by a faintly legible inscription; the other marker, also attributed to the Sibley Survey, has no inscription. The first two ruts, for convenience numbered 1 and 2 on the sketch map, run from a wooden copse bordering the intermittent stream on the site's northern end and trend southeasterly toward a fence line. The intersecting ruts run a distance of 150 meters. The second set of linked ruts parallel this first course, but lie to the south of the first group. These ruts, number 3 and 4, track approximately 160 meters along a southeast-northwest and westward trend respectively. The two ruts diverge from each other approximately 20 meters from where they become discernable on the far southeast corner of the site.

The environmental context of the site is excellent. Although this is a developed park it features native prairie plant species which provide an excellent backdrop to the preserved rutted segments. Integrity of location and setting are correspondingly high and the tangible sense of feeling and association is retained.