Larry E. Mix with Award
Larry E. Mix of St. John, Kansas, was awarded the Faye Anderson Award from the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter of the Santa Fe Trail at the winter meeting, January 14, 2001, in Kinsley, Kansas. Although the only name that appears on the plaque is Larry E. Mix, I share this with my most prized possession, this being my best friend and wife of Dodge City, Kansas, Carolyn L. (Thomas) Mix. We are going to take this time and web page to tell you a little about our Santa Fe Trail adventure.
This adventure and research of the Santa Fe Trail began when we lived in Edwards County, Kansas in 1965. History and books became a passion after Larry bought his first book about the Santa Fe Trail for his wife Carolyn. The book was a first edition of "Dodge City The Cowboy Capital" by Robert M. Wright. Larry bought the book because it told first hand the history that happened where Carolyn was born and lived until they married in 1960 at Dodge City. After getting the book home, between the pages of this book we found a collection of hand drawn maps and hand written notes about the Santa Fe Trail on a microfiche.
The company Larry worked for at the time had an old reader that he used to copy these maps to modern day maps. After this was done Larry began searching for the sites that were talked about in the text. The maps proved to be quite accurate. A good friend of Larry's worked for a company that could take this microfiche and make them into hard copy maps, so we let him do just that. He brought them back to us one day and about a month later he passed away. We never did get to go out together and explore the Trail, but we think about him every time we use them. From these maps and notes it was discovered that the Santa Fe Trail crossed the southeast quarter of the property we were renting at the time, less than a half mile from where we were living. This location was just one mile west of Big Coon Creek Crossing five miles west of Kinsley, Kansas.
These maps became the backbone for the research to find and record the historic sites of the Santa Fe Trail as we found them. Since this first book the collection of maps, local, Kansas history and Santa Fe Trail books has grown to over 2,000 books along with about 1,000 maps in the year of 2008.
For many years along with Carolyn we made trips up and down the Trail exploring the many places that we read about. Any place that we went, some time during the trip we would end up at a trail site. This left the two of us to explore on our own. We have made two complete trips from Franklin, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico and have been to most of the major sites along the way. We have logged thousands of miles just along the Santa Fe Trail in the State of Kansas. We are planning another complete trip of the Trail in the very near future.
Along about 1992 we heard about the push to get the Santa Fe Trail off the ground and into the history of the nation where it should be. There were Chapters being formed all along the Trail. We found out from some old friends that there was going to be a Chapter of the Santa Fe Trail in Edwards County, Kansas. We went to the next meeting and joined the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter.
Over the years we've been associated with the Wet/Dry Routes, we have spent countless hours up and down this part of the Santa Fe Trail installing markers, researching, taking pictures, cleaning weeds. We were also major contributing members of the team that researched and compiled the data for the Chapter publication A Directory of Santa Fe Trail Sites in 1999, this page is a part of that project. We bought a GPS unit and mapping software for our computer and did all of the GPS mapping for this publication. We spent lots of time and money on this project for the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter.
In 1994, Larry and Carolyn volunteered to transport the displays, the Chapter made, to several locations around the central part of Kansas. In the time we were doing this, we traveled over 2,000 miles setting up the displays and answering questions at several locations. At the time there were two displays. One of the displays traces the evolution of transportation on the Santa Fe Trail. It featured commentary and artifacts related to the various beasts of burden used to transport trade goods to and from New Mexico. Included in the display are a pack saddle, harness hames, a stay chain, ox shoes, and American ox yoke, a Mexican ox yoke, and an ox chain. The original traveling display portrayed the fifty-nine markers set along the five separate routes of the Trail between Larned and Dodge City, Kansas. These displays are now housed at the Edwards County Museum in Kinsley, Kansas.
In 1994 Larry assisted in helping a young man by the name of Matt Waldren of Troop 238 in Lewis, Kansas to complete an "Eagle Service Award" project. The project was the compilation of a directory of sites marked by the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter in Pawnee, Edwards, and Ford Counties in Kansas. In addition to the name and addresses of the property owners on whose land each marker is placed, the legal description of each site is noted. The directory was placed in the Santa Fe Trail Center, Fort Larned National Historic Site, and the Kansas State Historical Society for future references.
For several years Larry collected and archived information on the Santa Fe Trail, along with other history about the area that he lived in at the time. Over the years there were people that kept telling him to put it into some form, some kind of a filing system so it could be found in a timely manner. From 1964 to about 1994 Larry had collected mountains of information. It was found on everything from a napkin to just a simple piece of paper and photos of all kinds relating to the Trail. Most of the text was photocopied from articles that were found at research centers across the length of the Santa Fe Trail. There is even information on VCR tapes. The video camera was a research tool that was used on trips to where ever we went.
In 1992, a medical condition forced Larry to quit work. Rather than go crazy sitting around doing nothing, Larry thought he would try to keep busy rather than worry about his condition. Larry started to gather and sort the information and putting it on the first used computer he bought in Great Bend, Kansas. This first computer was doing the job, but it wasn't how Larry had envisioned it. This is when Larry decided to get some professional help and took it to our local computer shop and traded this "dinosaur" as Mac Zimmerman called it, for a later model and started the job over with the latest programs. Entering information into the computer was very slow because up until this time Larry hadn't even turned one on. Typing was last done in high school. There was another little deal to over come, nine fingers! This later computer did the job the way it had been pictured in Larry's mind. The information could be accessed quick and easy, a lot easier than the stacks of papers and books that were in a dozen different places around the house. There were many mistakes and some day I expected the old computer to put up a screen that said; "Make up your dam mind" but it never did. I guess it just put up with the many changes this old guy came up with.
Then came a set back after buying a second computer. It was found that transfering information from one computer to the other wouldn't work. If you enter data on a new computer with all the newer programs, the information can't be read on an older one with older or different programs. Research into this for someone that knew nothing about this type of stuff was difficult to say the least. After looking and just plain common sense told me that it needed to be put into something that could be read by any computer. HTML is an international language to all browsers that are on all computers. Make it simple and any browser will be able to read it. This was the solution to the problem and this is how it's been done. All the research information has been entered as web-pages on my computers.
In 1993, I decided to put up a website. It started out as a personal site that had some Santa Fe Trail information about the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter the first to have a website. Mostly it became a site to keep what our grandkids were doing in there school events. This first website was on Geocities. The website was left up until January 1, 2001, it hadn't been updated for some time and at that time it was deleted and is no more.
In 1998, St. John, Kansas got its own Internet service provider. At that time the Wet/Dry Routes website was moved to stjohnks.net, only it still was a secondary page on Larry & Carolyn's website. It stayed this way for about a year. When our internet bill came due, I went down and talked to Mac Zimmerman about a name change and new address to put the Santa Fe Trail website on as the number one page. Mac and I put our heads together and decided that the new address would be; "www.santafetrailresearch.com/". The Santa Fe Trail part of the website became the main page. It had been clear from the start that there are a lot of people out there from around the world interested in the Old Trail and were intrested in getting information about it. The website is averaging 100+ hits per day.
In 1999 Larry & Carolyn's web site was selected as one of the Net's finest and informative. It is included in StudyWebTM's listing of educational links.
StudyWeb is one of the Internet's premier sites for educational resources for students and teachers. Since 1996, our expert reviewers have scoured the Internet to select only the finest sites to be included in StudyWebTM's listing of educational links. Inclusion in StudyWebTM will increase your exposure and attract new visitors to your site: our reviews have been featured on Webcrawler Select, The Lycos Top 5%, Education World and many others, and StudyWebTM updates are provided to media and educational resources around the world.
Of course, we already knew this because at the time it was being used by several schools around the world as a study site for History of Westward Expansion. The most visitors to the site are in this order; #1 is .com, #2 is .net, #3 is .us and #4 is .edu, which is US Educational. This is a fact that we are the most proud of. That we just might be a small part of shaping a young person into being the next true Santa Fe Trail Historian like Mac Simmons or Leo & Bonita Oliva Wagon Tracks Editor & book author. These young people are the future of the Santa Fe Trail!Along about this time Leo & Bonita Oliva gave us permission to put on the web site the Index to Wagon Tracks Volume 1 to 10, 1986/1996. This is one of the best research tools for the Santa Fe Trail there is, if people would just use it. I've tried for years to get the Historic content of the Wagon Tracks Quarterly on our site so the Index can really be used to its fullest, it hasn't happened as of yet anyway. Visit the Last Chance Store for back issues of Wagon Tracks.
In September of 1999 at the Santa Fe Trail Symposium held at Council Grove, Kansas, Larry E. Mix was given the "Award of Merit" for developing and maintaining the Santa Fe Trail Research website.
This Oval Santa Fe Trail Sign is now in a private collection in Central Kansas!! Yee Haaaaw!!!!
This is a dream come true for Larry E. & Carolyn Mix in May of 2000. We've always wanted one of these and now we have one. With only about 100 of these signs put on schools along the Santa Fe Trail in the first place in 1948, never in our life time did we think we would even find one, let alone to buy it and have this sign in our collection of Santa Fe Trail items.
This sign was dropped into our lives on May 16, 2000 with an email requesting information on the oval sign. Then along came this email.Subject: In a rut.
Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 12:42:56 -0400 (EDT)
To: santafetrail@stjohnks.net
For anyone interested in purchasing my oval marker, E-mail me with a bid. E-mails will be answered. For a photo, send a self addressed stamped envelope to. Sue, New Jersey. I will try to post a picture on the Internet.
Thanks,
SueWe were the high bidder and our sign was delivered on June 10, 2000.
In August of 2000 the website took on another new look and name, same address. It became the "Santa Fe Trail Research Site" The Great Highway of Commerce. This was in preparation for the addition of four new web-sites to join the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter, the first Chapter of the Santa Fe Trail to have a website on the Internet in January 28, 1998. The Quivira Chapter came on line February 15, 2001, Fort Dodge/Dodge City Chapter on March 1, 2001, Wagon Bed Spring Chapter on May 1, 2001, Missouri River Outfitters Chapter on September 1, 2002, Flint Hills Chapter on March 25, 2003. On April 14, 2004 the Cottonwood Crossing Chapter joined our plan to have all chapters along the Santa Fe Trail have a web sites for information on their area. We now have seven of the twelve Chapters of the Santa Fe Trail on the St. John Kansas Server. Our only goal is to further promote these sections of the Santa Fe Trail with new research material from the people who know the area, the people who live within these sections of the Trail.
In January 2003 Microsoft took notice of how our site was using the photos and links to their TerraServer site. This is a really fascinating story about how a retired mechanic figured out how he could find missing sections of the historic Santa Fe Trail using the Microsoft TerraServer, a satellite imaging system developed by Microsoft Research. Some of the wagon trail ruts are still visible from space but hard to find at ground level. John Spilker of Microsoft Research Dot Com stated: "I had the pleasure of taking with Larry Mix last year. He has devoted an incredible amount of his life to researching the trail and loves to share his research with Trail Buffs, grade schools, high schools and college students. After he discovered the Web would enable him to publish to a very broad audience, he learned HTML on his own and built a Santa Fe Trail Web site. On top of this, he doesn't even like computers. There's a lot of really bright people at Microsoft Research, but I doubt anyone there could have made the discovery that Larry did." And here's a great piece of advice from Larry: "My wife and I are planning another trip along the complete length of the trail in the very near future. I hope that we'll see you in a rut along the way. Don't forget to bring your laptop," said Mix.
Some Trail sites can be only seen with the USGS aerial photos as there are no roads to get to the sites and they are on private property. The later part of Febuary of 2004, Research at Microsoft Dot Com did a feature article on how the Santa Fe Trail Research Site used the tool "TerraServer" to explain and see the Santa Fe Trail. We also got a link from another article Microsoft did on how TerraServer was put together and how it works. It's just nice to be noticed by the most successful business in the world. "Microsoft"! Larry & Carolyn of the Santa Fe Trail Research Site, "Thank you!" for this honor.
On January 10, 2004, another dream came through. The Directory of Santa Fe Trail Sites, published and written by a charter member of the Wet/Dry Routes Chapter was added to our site. This doubled the size of our site on the Internet. A Directory of Santa Fe Trail Sites and Auto Tour are included in this major research and marking project. The Wet/Dry Routes Chapter has always been the leading force along the Santa Fe Trail with all their on going projects of interpretation and marking of the Old Santa Fe Road.
The day we got this project on the World Wide Web, I sat there and was wondering just "why" this would be good to put on the Internet. Then I got to thinking about the day you could take a laptop, cell phone and any other device to use our site while you follow the trail. That day is here and now! Then I thought, here we are again, The Wet/Dry Routes Chapter waiting for the rest of the world to catch up!
On January 28, 2004 the Great Bend Tribune did an article about the placing of the Directory of Santa Fe Trail Sites Book on the Santa Fe Trail Research Site of St. John, Kansas. The Larned Tiller and Toiler did a front page article on our site and the Directory of Santa Fe Trail Sites book. The Dodge City Daily Globe put a link to the Santa Fe Trail Research Site in their Adventures magazine 2004 edition, to help tourists who come to the area tour southwest Kansas and the Trail.
At last count the "Santa Fe Trail Research Site" has over 1050+ pages of information and pictures. The site has an archive of Newsletter's, of seven Chapter's we belong to. There are USGS photos for over 866 Santa Fe Trail sites along it's length. There are seventy five in-depth articles that are trail related and more on the way. More and more present day & historic photos are being added all the time. New information may be found and added. Up todate information about the events along the trail can be found on the calendar of events page, where to get in touch with the other Chapters along the Trail. A book list is on the site. Books may be added by the trail buffs who visit. On April 1st, 2003, the Santa Fe Trail Research Site became the Official Santa Fe Trail website at their board meeting at Trinidad, Colorado. On September 1, 2003 we gave that job up to go back to providing Santa Fe Trail information to the world. On May 3, 2003 at the annual meeting of the Fort Larned Old Guard we became the Official Fort Larned Old Guard website. We are very honored to have this bestowed upon us!
We also maintain and update other web sites. The Santa Fe Trail Center in Larned, Kansas, the National Headquarters for the Santa Fe Trail and the Official Santa Fe Trail History Museum in the State of Kansas. We created a complete new site with pictures for the museum in 1998 but after they changed ISP's we were no longer able to update the site, the new company wouldn't let us in.
In November of 2000, we put on the Internet a site for Keith Chadd of Dodge City, Kansas. This site is all about Historic Maps of Ford, Edwards and Kiowa Counties in Kansas. Keith has researched the historic information about these counties and marked them on maps.
In September of 2001 Carolyn and I took on another project. This one was to help the Kansas State Historical Society transcribe the Kansas Historical Quarterlies and put them on the WWW for all to enjoy.
We'd be happy to have you join the remarkable group of volunteers who are putting the Quarterlies on the WWW so all can enjoy our Rich History in the State of KansasYou can help! Like all our projects, this is purely a volunteer effort. We need many people to help scan or type these articles into electronic files for presentation on the Internet. Participating is easy, all you need to do is check it out with this link!
Kansas Historical Quarterly 1931 to 1977 On January 10, 2008 a major change took place on the Santa Fe Trail Research Site. We got our own domain name, Santa Fe Trail Research Dot Com. We also changed the name of our site to Santa Fe Trail Research. The main reason for this is because of the number of schools that come to our site just for research and teaching of the history of the Santa Fe Trail. So Thanks to all the teachers that direct the young folks to our site. We do hope you find what you are looking for, if not please ask and we will be more than happy to help you find an answer to your question.
Well, thats just about all I can tell you about our Santa Fe Trail adventure. We do hope you enjoy the website and visit often. There are always new articles or additions to old ones. There are just to many people to thank for allowing us to put their material on the site. To all of them from all "Trail Buffs" a great big "Thank You!" If there is something you like, let us know and that goes for something you don't like also. We enjoy hearing from everyone!! The website is yours, we are just the "Keepers and Webmasters" of it.
So enjoy and as Larry & Carolyn always say;
John Warner
"Modern Pioneer"
1905-1996
Arthur Sayler
"The Post Rock Craftsman"
1907-1997
Bruce Kenyon
"The Fort Larned Blacksmith"
1929-1997
"Mission Control 2003"
"Mission Control 1999"
Larry & Carolyn Mix
Tracing the Santa Fe Trail
Santa Fe Trail Research Site
"E-Mail & Home Page"
Larry & Carolyn Mix
St. John, Kansas
© "Forever"
