A short walking trail at Fort Larned leads out to an unmistakable set of swales in the open prairie: the original wagon ruts of the Santa Fe Trail, worn ten to fifteen inches deep into the sod by tens of thousands of wagons over nearly sixty years of trade. The signage marks the path and explains what you are seeing.
It is a quiet, evocative place — the same flat horizon, the same wind through the grass that a freighter would have known in 1860. Best seen in low morning or evening light, when the ruts cast clear shadows.