Lone Elm Campground

I rode the scooter out to Lone Elm city park this afternoon. I thought I had the camera but alas, it wasn’t in my pocket when I got there.

It was about 87 or so and the breeze was out of the North West so it wasn’t so humid as it has been. The day was beautiful.

Lone Elm is a campground, that you can’t camp at anymore. It started life known as Round Grove in 1820 or so, and was on the Santa Fe Trail. But the grove was slowly consumed for fire wood. Eventually leaving only one big elm tree that was too big to chop down. Thus it was known as Lone Elm.

It was on a creek and a spring that is now a well. The grounds were about one days ride from Independence or WestPort, where most folks departed. Armies and thousands of folks on the trail stopped at the location. The trail was used for commercial shipping before the railroad.

It was eventually a 160 acre farm, which was in tern purchased by the city of Olathe, Kansas. Now there are softball fields and soccer fields where the farm was and a nice shelter with a large fireplace on the creek. Trails follow the water for a leisurely hike. The city has this web site and picture.

There are reader boards around the shelter telling stories of the trail and its patrons. I found these photos taken in the winter.

The Daughters of the American Revolution placed a marker in about 1906 and it is still there. Its along the side of the Lone Elm Road, and folks fly by at 60 plus miles an hour, and never see or know what the stone is about. Here is a picture.

Some further Googling will yield many sites about the lone elm campground!

This was prior to the Mahaffie Stagecoach stop where we had field day, but is also part of Olathe’s history.

It was a pleasant afternoon.

Retired Rod