Official helps find Oregon Trail in wetlands
Standing on a wooded bank above the Wakarusa River on the southern edge of the Baker Wetlands, Jere Krakow liked what he saw.
“This is pretty compelling evidence,” said Krakow, superintendent of the National Trails System, a National Park Service agency, noting how settlers would have appreciated the river’s limestone bottom.
Krakow, accompanied by Chuck Haines, a biology instructor at Haskell Indian Nations University, and members of the Wetlands Preservation Organization, spent much of Friday afternoon figuring out where the Oregon Trail cut through what’s now the Baker and Haskell wetlands and the Haskell campus.
The WPO invited Krakow to tour the area in hopes of winning National Park Service support for installing signs on Haskell’s campus and nearby highways to call attention to the trail’s presence and significance. The group also wants to build an observation area along the trail that would be accessible for people with disabilities.
Krakow and Haines agreed early maps of the area show the trail passing through the wetlands to an area east of Broken Arrow Park.
They said it was likely the trail’s passengers crossed the Wakarusa River at its junction with Pleasant Grove Creek, a little more than a mile south and west of the wetlands’ 31st Street entrance.
The Oregon Trail, part of which began at Independence, Mo., served as the major corridor to the northwestern United States from 1843 to 1869, when the transcontinental railroad was completed.
Krakow encouraged WPO to apply for National Trails System grants to help pay for the signs and an observation tower.
Krakow’s visit was unrelated to issues surrounding the proposed South Lawrence Trafficway being routed through the wetlands.
“All we wanted to do today was see what we can do to call attention to the historical significance of the wetlands,” said organization president Nick Luna, a Haskell freshman.
From left, Jere Krakow, Nick Luna and Chuck Haines stand on the northern bank of the Wakarusa River on the edge of the Baker Wetlands. Krakow, superintendent of the National Trails System, an agency within the National Park Service, scouted the site Friday where the Oregon Trail likely crossed the Wakarusa.
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