Positioned approximately halfway between Fort Osage and the town of Independence, MO–making it not quite twenty miles northeast of downtown Kansas City)–Blue Mills was an important center for provisioning traders and settlers on the Santa Fe Trail between the mid 1830s and the mid 1860s. The name comes from two nearby mills built near the Little Blue River, either a flour and gristmill or perhaps a gristmill and sawmill. The Blue Mills area was well known for several crossings of the Missouri River. What came to be known as Blue Mills landing started as Owens landing in 1829 and “countless tons of trade goods bound for Santa Fe went up to Independence from this landing.”
The Santa Fe Trail ran between the mills, which played an important role in providing provisions to travelers. In general, mills often served as a locus for settlement and provided valuable goods and services to Trail travelers and area residents. The existing mills represent a tangible reminder of Santa Fe Trail traffic from 1834 to 1865.
The mills of the Blue Mills area were constructed in 1834-1835 on the Santa Fe trail at a crossing of the Little Blue River. The crossing was first mentioned by Archibald Gamble, secretary for the Sibley Survey in 1825. Sources are unclear if the bridge was constructed in 1834 or 1837.
The development of the Blue Mills area was closely tied to several prominent local businessmen, particularly Michael Rice, Samuel C. Owens, and the Aull family. Businessmen who owned their own mills had a distinct advantage over other suppliers because they could eliminate need to purchase flour from the East to resell in their stores.
A major impetus for constructing the mills derived from the prospect of securing contracts with nearby Fort Leavenworth. Prior to the construction of the mills in 1834, the Aull firm was defeated in its bid to provide the fort with staple supplies, such as flour. To ensure that the next year’s bid was the lowest, James constructed the gristmill at the Little Blue River, which would enable him to grind his own flour and reduce costs. His bid was the lowest and he secured the $6,500 contract from the US government.
The idea of “going to mill” was part of frontier life, but could be a somewhat dreaded ordeal. Snowy or muddy roads could make travel dangerous, animals were not always cooperative, and rainy or cold weather made everything more difficult and at times quite dangerous. One early settler described his return from Riders Mill in the dark and cold:
We had a five horse team, and twenty odd miles before us. Noel rode the saddle horse and drove the team, until to avoid freezing he would jump off and fun by its side, till tired and exhausted, he would mount and ride and whip again…Dark came on, and oh! how cold–how bitter cold. To make matters worse, in crossing a ravine at the head of the creek, our team became tangled in the gearing, and some of it was broken or came loose, in arranging which Noel’s fingers were frozen, and I fell into the ravine, and so twisted one knee as for a time not to be able to walk. He managed to get hitched up again, and I managed to get in the wagon, and he drove Jehu-like until we reached the house of Isaac Dunnaway, who opened his hospitable door, and save us from freezing to death. (The History of Jackson County, Missouri: Containing a History of the County, Its Cities, Towns, Etc., Biographical Sketches of Its Citizens, Jackson County in the Late War… History of Missouri, Map of Jackson County …, 1881)
Because flour and lumber were particularly important frontier necessities, the commercial and transportation networks of Blue Mills extended far beyond their local communities. Flour from the gristmill was shipped to Independence, St. Joseph, and Fort Leavenworth. settlement was precursor to Independence as recognized terminus of trail, but still important because of its proximity.(Hickman 1920, 92), 92. By 1832, Independence was pre-eminent as the eastern outfitting point on the Trail. (Historic Site Registration Form)
While we might associate places to cross rivers with modern bridges, river landings, such as the Upper and Lower Independence landings, were important economic hubs that competed each other (W. P. O’Brien, 2014), 46.
As steamboat use moved the eastern terminus of the Trail farther westward to the new town of Independence, Blue Mills Landing took on a lead role as the transition point between water transport and land transport; it was also the transfer point for emigrants heading westward. A steamboat passenger in 1846 reports seeing a group of Spaniards who were attached to a Santa Fe company, along with their wagons, a group of Mexican Indians, a few French hunters in buckskins, and a group of Oregon-bound settlers.(Historic Site Registration Form) (fn 19).
In the 1850s, as landings farther up the river became more popular, Blue Mills began to decline, and was supplanted in 1853 by the City of Kansas levee as the main Trail landing point (fn20). yet the mills were operated continuously through the early 1860s. - anything else go here? [NEED RESEARCH] - By the early 1920s, the mills were in ruins.22 - “In 1923, Mark Siegfried found workmen clearing away ruins of the old mill and getting ready to roll the millstone into the river.”23 Today, the Santa Fe Railroad tracks cover the site; no traces of the original landing remain.
Near the Blue Mills area, an important Civil War Battle took place.(The Battle of the Little Blue River - Historic Sibley Missouri) (The Battle at Blue Mills Landing., 1861)
Although now physically degraded, the Blue Mills ruins remains an important monument to the mills’s importance to commercial, communication, and transportation systems. - Because so many mills have not survived at all, any remains remind us of their significance - they also provide archeological evidence about mill construction and use along the trails.