"Jumping off place for the west " a Kansas City Travel Page by Toughluck

Once called Westport, Independence, and Kansas City, the bend in the Missouri has been the head of the river for those going overland to the far west. Here in the eastern suburbs of modern Kansas City, the riverboats unloaded ox and mule teams with wagons and families headed west.

Hardy trail hands would take the Santa Fe Trail southwest to Santa Fe as commercial traffic, while the familes and wagons would begin their trek to the west across the central plains and the Platte River valley for California and Oregon.

For more sites along the Overland Trails, see:
Kearney, Nebraska;
Chimney Rock, Bayard, Nebraska;
Gering, Nebraska;
Fort Laramie, Wyoming;
Guernsey, Wyoming (Trail Ruts and Register Cliff State Historic Sites).