Retired teacher dedicates days to preserving story of Santa Fe Trail

Katharine Kelley is the keeper of the Santa Fe Trail, particularly the segment that runs through Douglas County.

The 94-year-old retired schoolteacher knows just about everything there is to know about the trail, a commercial route from Franklin, Mo., to Santa Fe, N.M., that flourished between 1821 and 1880.

She can tell you about the wagon wheel ruts that can still be seen off U.S. 56. She can tell you about the Narrows, the high land that divides the Kansas and Wakarusa rivers from the Marais des Cygnes River. She can recite the story of Mud Springs, where the ground would turn soggy and wagons would sink to their hubs after a downpour.

“I’ve been down the Santa Fe Trail twice — once on a bus with a guide, and I’ve also driven down once,” she said.

Kelley, who balances her gait with two canes, can be seen researching the Santa Fe Trail and other Douglas County history nearly every day at Baldwin’s public library. She has taken over a corner of the main reading room to store and display the books, photographs, maps and other historical items she and others have collected over the years.

“She’s very dedicated,” said library director Kathy Johnson. “She’ll get here if it’s possible. She’s here about 3 1/2 hours every day.”

Lifelong resident

Kelley grew up with her parents and three sisters on a farm north of Baldwin. She attended Coal Creek School, a grade school between Baldwin and Vinland where her father had been a student and her grandmother had been a teacher. At that time, she said, students spent nine years in grade school before advancing to a four-year high school.

After her high school graduation, she enrolled at Baker University.

“I moved into Baldwin when I started college in the fall of 1928,” Kelley said, explaining that she boarded with her aunt and uncle until she finished her degree.

Kelley wanted to teach high school science, but few schools at that time would hire female teachers to instruct teenagers. She eventually decided to apply for a teaching job at a grade school and was hired by Clearfield School, northeast of Baldwin.

“The first year I boarded out in the district. I walked three-quarters mile to school and would make the fire in the morning,” she said. “On Friday night, I would get into my Model T Ford and drive home.”

The second year, she got a better car, so she was able to live in Baldwin and make the daily commute to the school. She rented a room from fellow Baker University graduate and friend Amelia Betts, who was living in her late grandmother’s house and operated a paint and wallpaper store in downtown Baldwin.

After her second year at Clearfield, Kelley took a teaching position at Hopewell School, northwest of Baldwin. She stayed there for four years before being hired in 1940 by the Baldwin school district. She retired in 1974, after teaching mainly fifth-graders for 34 years.

Documenting the trail

But retirement didn’t mean slowing down for Kelley. Betts was fascinated with the Santa Fe Trail, and Kelley eventually became hooked on its history, too.

“Amelia started all of this. Her grandfather traveled on the Santa Fe Trail,” Kelley said. “The Santa Fe Trail didn’t mean much to me until Amelia.”

In addition to documenting as much information as they could about the trail, Kelley and Betts also wanted to help preserve it. They decided they would place historical markers at seven locations in Douglas County that were significant to telling the story of the trail.

Betts died in May 1984, before all the markers could be erected.

“Before Amelia died, we both put in money to help mark the trail and tell why it’s important,” Kelley said. “We helped buy three signs before she died, and with the money she left me, I got the other four.”

Organization

The green-and-white markers can be seen at Black Jack Park, about three miles east of Baldwin; Palmyra; Trail Park, which is a half-mile north of Baldwin; Brooklyn; Willow Springs; Globe; and on U.S. 56, one mile east of the Douglas-Osage county line where the trail crosses the highway and angles toward Overbrook.

Today, Kelley spends her time organizing historical materials donated to the library and responding to inquiries about the county’s history or the people who used to live there.

“We get letters from people across the nation, and she delves in and gets the information for them,” Johnson said. “She knows local history. We don’t have to look it up because she knows it.”

And, also knowing that she can’t live forever, Kelley has begun lining up someone to carry on her and Betts’ legacy.

“We’re hoping Sandra (Johnson) will do it,” Kathy Johnson said. “That’s who Miss Kelley has picked.”