In the corner of the Prairie States: Oklahoma, Missouri, and Kansas via Rt. 66 (June 2021)

 We had the opportunity to travel for a bit on the old Rt. 66. Touched on it in and around Tulsa, but then drove for quite some time in a vertical Northeast direction out of Oklahoma, touching into Kansas, and traveling on to sleep in Missouri. Sometimes it was hard to tell where state and/or tribal lines where.

This town is named after a tribe of Indians that was once a part of a much larger group of Sioux named Dhegiha. The descendants  were originally from the Ohio Valley. Others from this language group are also now in Oklahoma territory as independent nations.

Quapaw is the last town before entering Kansas. It was Indigenous settled in the late 1800's (after governmental removal in 1834), but the discovery of the lead and zinc mines in the region in the early 20th century brought thousands of miners to the area. The town is not very large population-wise (< 1,000), but the Quapaw tribe have a 13,000 acre tribal jurisdictional area and about 230 Quapaw living in the town.

This is North Main St. and believe it or not, this was once a restaurant.

Not sure if the Cafe survived the Pandemic (we saw many shuttered places), but some business-minded youth had set up a lemonade stand next door. Yes we bought some.

On a side street this sweet craftsman style house was found. I love making that turn and finding a gem. 

Somebody (Republicans if you were wondering as I was) bought this 1910 house for $63k and did a fantastic job of rehabbing it.

The Quapaw Nation and Quapaw town, we discovered are not one and the same. 

Way off in the distance, even though the sign said we were leaving Quapaw (nation?/town?) we could see the huge casino that we thought was Quapaw run.

And sure enough, as we got closer we saw the name- the Downstream Casino Resort. "Downstream People" is what Quapaw people are known as.

O-Gah-Pah is how you say Quapaw in the tribe's language.

The Casino grounds were super clean and tidy.

But inside the cigarette smell made us feel pretty ill. It has been years since Massachusetts has allowed indoor cigarette smoking. In the bathroom at the casino I found these condoms, which gave me a chuckle.

This marker was right before the state line on the Oklahoma side. Honestly, at that point, I didn't know if we were in Kansas or Missouri.

This sign wasn't very helpful. I thought we had left Cherokee Nation a while back. The town Cherokee, OK is more Northwestern. Also, there are 14 places in the U.S.A. named Cherokee so we were a little confused. Let's try Cherokee County that should tell us something. Yup, ahuh, ok- there is Cherokee County in GA, and also in N.C., S.C.  But there is also a Cherokee County in Kansas, so we were found! 

In the nineteenth century, the nation’s focus was on the Missouri-Kansas border, where peoples with different definitions of freedom collided, inciting and fueling a Civil War. 

• When Kansas was opened for settlement in 1854, a border war ensured, capturing the nation’s attention. The Kansas-Nebraska Act nullified the uneasy balance established by the Missouri Compromise and left the territory’s future slave status in the hands of settlers. The stakes were high for both sides. The violence of the Missouri/Kansas Border War ushered in the Civil War, consumed the region in bloody conflict through the war's end, and devastated communities on both sides of the border.

What is "Freedom's Frontier?" That was new learning for me. A place of a border war= do they teach about this border war in our New England history textbooks? I can't remember.  Apparently right on the border of Missouri and Kansas, which is where we were there was a border war. "Bleeding or Bloody Kansas" the border war was called. It was rooted in the violent struggle to get Kansas to be a slave state (1854-1859), which didn't happen. Anti-slavery was the victor and Freedom's Frontier was born!

Freedom's Frontier National Heritage Area includes the sites of extraordinary events that forever changed America. 

Even as I struggled with the signage, I sort of had the feeling were in Kansas, and the next sign bore me out.

And just like that, there it was again. Of course we were back on good 'ole Route 66, and yes Dorothy, we were in Kansas!

Apparently we were in Baxter Springs, KS a small town right on the border. We did not see a rainbow bridge or even remember driving over any kind of water. It was likely a "crick" we cackled to each other, foolishly trying to adopt a prairie accent and pronounce "creek" the way we heard folks say it.

Of course I loved this wall art! And no, I did not find any bricks here. But the whole little downtown seemed to be made out of bricks.

Baxter Springs, KS really wasn't anything exciting to look at unless you like bricks, which of course I do. The little downtown in this bigger than other little towns @ 4,200k population, is the most populous city of Cherokee County. It has a history that is very similar to the many we had already passed through on our trip. The exception being that there were Osage Indians in this territory prior to the "Removal" times as they had been chased to the plains from Ohio Valley in Kentucky by the Iroquois around the mid-17th century. The US Government deemed this area "Cherokee territory" when they removed the tribe to here. As in other places a mixed bag of Indians and white settlers set up a trading post. 

Once again, finding a cool side street rehabbed house was fun. It is even a historic house at that!

This is what the original Rial A. Niles house looked like, with its hip roof and cupola (Italianate style) It was built in 1870 for a local businessman and his wife. It has gone through many iterations and was even once a church! Now it is a private residence once again.

That about ended our Plains States Route 66 journey.