But don’t think it insignificant for a moment. Unlike other westbound trails traveled by pioneers settling the West, the Santa Fe was primarily a commercial trade route, and it took loaded wagon trains six to ten weeks to travel the 900-mile route.Ī section of the Santa Fe Historic Trail has also been designated as a National Scenic Byway.Ĭouncil Grove, Kansas, is situated along the Santa Fe Trail, just 130 miles west of Independence, Missouri. With a population of 2,218, Council Grove is your average small American town. The trail originated in Independence, Missouri, crossed the length of the region that is now Kansas, parts of Oklahoma and Colorado, to its terminus in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Santa Fe National Historic Trail is a driving route that roughly follows the original route established by William Becknell in 1821 over earlier trails blazed by Native Americans and Spanish and French explorers. In my excitement I had forgotten to check the fuel gauge, and I basically prayed my way to the first gas station I spotted when I hit town. It was only a 17-mile drive to Council Grove, the northern terminus of the Kansas Flint Hills Scenic Byway, but a bit of anxiety set in during the last few miles due to poor planning on my part. With only two remaining students, the school closed permanently in 1946.ĭue to my packed itinerary, I decided to drive to the schoolhouse and then get back on the road. As it turns out, I had happened upon the Bichet School, District 34, a structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This one-room schoolhouse was built of native limestone in 1896 for children from a nearby French settlement. All I knew is that it was the focal point of an extremely photogenic setting. As I recall, I passed the structure and turned back to explore.Īt the time, I didn’t know whether the building was a school, a church, a firehouse, or a lift station. It was on US-50 that I came upon an abandoned roadside building.
But my miscalculation would become a blessing in disguise. Thirty miles north of Wichita, I headed east on U.S. Now that I have verified GPS tags from photos, I have learned that I actually connected with K-177 at Strong City, which is approximately the midpoint of the route. Until I started doing research for this article, I believed that I had driven the entire length of the Kansas Flint Hills Scenic Byway.
And it has that intangible something that makes you feel like you belong, even though you may have never traveled there before. Occupying a 47-mile stretch of Kansas state highway K-177 between Cassoday and Council Grove, this two-lane paved road is bordered by rolling prairies of wildflowers and native grasses as far as the eye can see. The Kansas Flint Hills National Scenic Byway is everything you would envision a Kansas backroad to be, with its endless grasslands, limestone bluffs, and cerulean skies. 7.2 Kaw Mission State Historic Site (1851).
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