Osage Buffalo Hunting Trails

Osage Buffalo Hunting Trails. . The buffalo supplied essential food for the Osage, and buffalo tongues and robes were valuable trade items. The buffalo country between the upper Red River and the Arkansas along the Washita, Canadian, and Cimarron Rivers was extremely important to the Osage. All of the buffalo trails in Oklahoma lead to this area., The Black Dog Trail was a minimum of eight horsemen side by side in width. The trail started east of Baxter Springs, Kansas and roughly followed the Kansas-Oklahoma state line before heading to the Salt Plains. Black Dog's camps were always marked by a double heart and horse pictograph. The Heart Stays Trail began in present day Oswego, Kansas on the Neosho-Grand River. It followed the same course as the Black Dog Trail., The Bird Creek Trail left the Claremore Villages between the Verdigris and Neosho-Grand then followed Bird Creek northwest to the Elm and Salt Creek Fork. From this point, it followed the Second Buffalo Trail to the Plains. A branch of this trail followed Salt Creek south, and then, north of Fairfax, Oklahoma it turned west to cross the Arkansas above the mouth of Red Rock Creek. By following Red Rock Creek the trail reached the plains., Claremore III's village on the Verdigris River was the starting place of the Upland Forest Trail. This trail covered more in a day's travel than the other two trails. The Two Little Hills Trail began at the junction of the Verdigris and Elk Rivers about one and a half miles north of Independence, Kansas. It followed the same course as the Upland Forest Trail ending in the western plains., Early American explorers were very familiar with the Cimarron Trail since they often used portions of it. This trail ran upstream from Three Forks along the Arkansas River to the mouth of the Cimarron River. It then followed the Cimarron out to the Plains., The Washita Trail headed west at the headwaters of Muddy Boggy and eventually crossed the Washita River and thus reached the hunting grounds in Southern Oklahoma., One feature stands out in the network of Osage trails, there were more east-west trails in use at any given time than there were trails that ran north and south. This pattern in the network of transportation still prevails in the United States today. It is not surprising that so many of these routes became major roads in later times., Captions , (Diagram #1) Trails , Black Dog and Heart Stays Trail . Natchitoches Trail . Osage Trace . White-Illinois R. Trace . Ft. Smith Trail . Bird Creek Trail . Washita Trail . Two Little Hills and Upland Forest Trail . Cimaron Trail, Burma, L. (2004), The Osage Empire, In A History of The Osage People (New ed., p. 576), Tuscaloosa, Alabama. University of Alabama Press