The Old Military Road

This is a road that led from Kansas City, Missouri, to Fort Worth, Texas, and other places in the southwest. Many herds of cattle and ponies were driven north on this trail, and it became so well-used that it became very wide (after one set of wheel tracks became too deep, wagons would ride beside the tracks, thus widening the road) and fissures opened in between the tracks.

Kansas Pacific Railroad

The Kansas Pacific Railroad began in 1862, going west at the same time Central Pacific started from Sacramento going east. By 1870 it had reached Denver. One woman in the narrative remembers being stuck on a train for more than two days after a blizzard swallowed up the train and tracks.

The Soddy

The "soddy," or sod house, was a signature building of the Kansas prairie, built by those in the western part of the...