History of the Daniel Boone Trail

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The Daniel Boone Trail was dedicated to the "greatest of pioneers of the Mississippi Valley—Daniel Boone and his youngest son, Col. Nathan Boone." The Iowa route was for the most part over or near the trail made famous by Col. Nathan Boone, then a captain, who, with his company of U.S. troops, was sent on an Indian mission to the present site of Winona, Minn.

The northern section of the Daniel Boone Trail was organized on December 21, 1915, at Fort Dodge, Iowa, by the Boone Commercial Association; and southern section February 2, 1916, at Moberly, Mo.

The trail was to extend north to the Canadian border near Grand Marais and south to the Gulf of Mexico. In Iowa it passed through Bloomfield, Ottumwa, Oskaloosa, Pella, Prairie City, Madrid, Boone, Fort Dodge, Humboldt, Algona, and Bancroft.

The famed Fort Dodge meeting would bring together citizens from two industrious Iowa cities – Boone and Fort Dodge, Iowa. Originating from Fort Dodge, Floyd Douglas was made secretary, while L.E. Armstrong made Counsel of Webster County. From Boone, S.L. Moore was named treasurer and Council of Boone County, while J.B. McHose became the Counsel General of the trail. While this distinctly Iowa effort embodied the spirit of the Good Roads Movement, it also promoted statewide and national cooperation.

A year later, in October 1916, presumably after having accrued enough funds for the project, the Daniel Boone Trail Association submitted an application to register their markers with the Iowa State Highway Commission. McHose became its president and W.F. Hargan secretary. Three months later in January 1917, their route was approved.

SIDEBAR - Daniel Boone (Born October 11, 1734, and died September 26, 1820) was an American pioneer and hunter whose frontier exploits made him one of the first folk heroes of the United States. Boone is most famous for his exploration and settlement of what is now Kentucky, which was then beyond the western borders of the Thirteen Colonies. Despite resistance from American Indians, for whom Kentucky was a traditional hunting ground, in 1775 Boone blazed the Wilderness Road through the Cumberland Gap and into Kentucky. There he founded Boonesborough, one of the first English-speaking settlements beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Before the end of the 18th century, more than 200,000 people entered Kentucky by following the route marked by Boone.

Boone worked as a surveyor and merchant after the American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), but went deep into debt as a Kentucky land speculator. Frustrated with legal problems resulting from his land claims, in 1799 Boone resettled in Missouri, which was then part of Spanish Louisiana, where he spent his final years.

Pull-out caption - Boone County, Iowa, was established January 13, 1846, and named after Captain Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone.

SIDEBAR – Nathan Boone (Born March 2, 1781, and said to be the first white child born in Kentucky; died 1856)
Nathan Boone was the youngest son of Daniel Boone. As a teenager he left Kentucky with his elderly father to settle Missouri at the invitation of the Spanish. Nathan married Olive Van Bibber and joined his father in the later part of the 18th century. As was the custom then, Nathan, as the youngest son, looked after his father and established a home at Femme Osage near St. Charles, Missouri.

After Daniel's death Nathan joined the army and responsible for exploration and treaty negotiations with the Indians in modern Oklahoma, Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska. On Feb. 16, 1847, Boone was made major of the First Dragoons. In 1850, he was given a commission as lieutenant colonel of the Second Dragoons.

Nathan resettled near Ashgrove, Missouri (near Springfield, MO) to be closer to the frontier. He died shortly before the civil war. Nathan was a hero in his own right and is responsible for much of the early exploration of the Midwest.