If you’ve ever driven west across the plains of Kansas, the panhandle of Texas, the tribal nations of Oklahoma or the corn fields of Nebraska, it’s a sure bet that at one point you wondered what those early pioneers thought. They would travel miles and miles on horseback, in a wagon or even on foot, questioning: When will it end? Where is water? Is it worth it?
And just when they thought they were imaging things, they realized… Those clouds were actually mountains. Great. Now what?
Many obstacles stood in the way of those in search of gold, but those early adventurers forged trails that others would follow, among them the Santa Fe Trail, Oregon Trail, and Cherokee Trail. The latter of these spanned Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana from the 1840s through the early 1890s until the railroad replaced their usefulness.
n Colorado, some individuals substituted a thirst for gold for a home along the trail where they provided food, lodging and other services for weary travelers. In the 1860s, there were six of these “Mile Houses” along the Cherokee Trail, each named for their distance from Denver. Today, two of these have been preserved — the Four Mile House and the Seventeen Mile House.
If Denver’s Four Mile House Museum is old (164 years old to be exact), then the art of Chinese lanterns is ancient spanning back to the Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220 A.D.). Despite the differences in their age, these two previously unrelated historical treasures have forged a relationship steeped in mutual admiration and tradition.
Source: denvercenter.org
Photo Credit: gettyimages-ron_thomase
Categories: Kansas, Rural Lifestyle