Etta Marie Brill (Curator, Weston Historical Museum): 1837 is the date that Weston was founded. We were on the Missouri River at that time. Two young dragoons from Ft. Leavenworth had come up the river to explore after they had gone to a saloon on the Missouri side of the river several times. And these two young men got in a canoe, I would guess, and rowed up and down the river to see what was here. And they discovered that the Missouri River made a bay right at what became the ... the foot of what became our main street. And they were very far-sighted. They thought "Hmm. People are starting to go west to explore the west and look for gold. Land is opening up for claims and settlement. That's an excellent place for a steamboat to land or a ferry." And so they bought just a little property -- that's all they could afford -- and sold some lots and Weston began.
Frederick Chiaventone (Historical Novelist): It grows pretty quickly. In 1839, it's got a population of, say, 500, and by 1850, the population has grown to 5,000. There was a great ethnic mix here in Weston itself. It was Scotch-Irish. They were French. There's a great Black influence. The French influence comes from both the fur traders coming down from Canada and also coming up the Missouri from the south ... from New Orleans. There's a great German influence here as well. A lot of them were drawn to this area by the rolling hills. It reminded them of their homeland. A lot of trade originates here at Weston -- Westport, Independence, Weston are three major points for ... the jumping off points for the western journeys. A lot of the Mormon trains originate ... do their final outfitting here in Weston before pushing to the west toward Salt Lake City.
Etta Marie: Some people when they got here realized that the people going west had to have someone to provide them with the material they needed to go across the prairie. And so that's what a lot of people did here -- supplied things for those people to get ready to go.
Fred: And one of the fellas that takes advantage of this is a fella named Ben Holladay, who arrives here in 1838 -- a year after the town's established. Sets up a small tavern and gets into commerce.
Etta Marie: He had several businesses. He became our first postmaster. He owned property out in the country and in town as well. But he thought "there's another way to make money besides this." He had seen that people were going west out to Salt Lake City and trading with the Mormons out there. And they were doing well doing that. So he and his brother decided that they would load up the wagon and go out to Salt Lake City and see what they could do. They got to Salt Lake City and sold everything they had -- just made a pot of money. And so that put him on his feet and got started. That was probably not the only trip he made.
Fred: Ben Holliday then establishes ... buys out Russell, Major and Waddell's interest in a stage line and opens up Holladay's Overland and Express Company ... captures some seven mail routes going west serving Nebraska and the Wyoming territories. A lot of the Army posts are provided with their mail through Ben Holladay's offices, even going so far as the Oregon Territories.
Etta Marie: He had also owned railroad lines; he owned the Pony Express for a while while it was in existence; he owned silver mines; when he got to Oregon, he owned steamship lines -- everything he touched worked, because that man ... although people accused him of being a scoundrel and really having no thought for anyone he stepped on -- he made a lot of money and he was a manager.
Fred: But during his stay here in Weston, he has one really interesting association ... and that is with a young fella whose father moved the family down to Weston ... or down to Kansas, originally, to Leavenworth across the river. And this fella was an abolitionist and his name was Cody. And his young son, Bill Cody, comes with him.
Etta Marie: He was very young, very good rider, and I guess had become a very good shot. So he did ride on the Pony Express for a while. And then of course later he did ride on stagecoaches. Ben Holladay gave him a job. And then he did also earn his name by shooting buffalo to feed railroad workers. That's how he got the name Buffalo Bill.
The people who stayed in town prospered getting people ready to go. The people out in the country did well, too. The land here is very fertile -- will grow anything. The first crops they grew here, however ... the major money crop ... was hemp, which you and I think of as marijuana. It was not what they used it for back then. It was for rope and other things made from rope. We had slavery by then. Many people brought a few slaves with them. And the slaves did all the work. It was very hard work. After the Civil War, then the farmers decided to raise tobacco. The temperature was about right here, which seems strange to many people. The soil is Knox silt-loam -- very fertile, very good ... it's windblown soil -- blown here during the Ice Age. And so they started raising tobacco. It is now the big moneymaking crop in Weston.
Weston did very well up until the Civil War. And then we were beset by all kinds of terrible things. And you look at us and you think -- "What could have happened here?" We were right on the border across the river from Kansas. Kansas -- that was a free state. And the people in this area of course were for the most part Confederate sympathizers. That led to hand-to-hand fighting on the streets of Weston every day.
Fred: The town is really torn apart by the Civil War. And then there's a great fire, which destroys among other things Ben Holladay's International Hotel -- one of the great places to stay before moving west. And then the river ... there's a large flood and the river shifts about two miles, and eventually riverboat traffic dries up.
Etta Marie: And so here we were with no way to ship our goods, no way for people to come in, no way for people to get across the river here at all. In the meantime, Kansas City had been growing, so had St. Joe; bridges were being built; railroads were beginning to start, so Weston kind of declined. And so by the early 1900s, there were only about a thousand here.
Fred: And in many ways, the disappearance of the river is really what saved the town for today ... because it's essentially a very small town ... down to a population of about 1500, and remains that way for many, many years.
Etta Marie: And then, realizing we have many beautiful homes here -- we have more than 100 antebellum homes. Antebellum, you may know or may not know, means before the Civil War. Ante means before; bellum means a conflict. That's where the name comes from. So finally we got in touch with the National Historic Trust people and 22 blocks of Weston was made a National Historic Trust.
We have more than 10,000 visitors come through this museum every year. And people ... I often ask them -- What brings you to Weston? And some come of course because they're associated with Ft. Leavenworth, have family stationed there; some are on conventions from KC ... come here because they eat and see what the countryside's like. However, since they come from countries all over the world, that's interesting, too.
Fred: That's really one of the interesting aspects of the community of
Weston -- a lot of people come through on their way to other places; on
their way to new experiences. They come through the pioneers -- the
trailblazers ... the scouts ... the buffalo hunters ... the pony express
riders ... the stagecoach king -- the entrepreneurs... They come through;
they leave their mark; and they move on. They leave a little of
themselves behind, and it's captured here ... a little bit of a time
capsule. You walk down the streets, and you're walking essentially in
their footsteps.