“Retracing the Dragoon Trail in Iowa” with Kevin T. Mason

Kevin T. Mason, author of “Retracing the Dragoon Trail in Iowa,” came to the Ames Public Library on Wednesday. Mason went to ISU as a student and now teaches at the University of Northern Iowa. He is a rural and environmental historian of the American Midwest. Mason talked about his book covering the old Dragoon Trail, which runs across Iowa. Many have probably seen the signs all over Iowa marking the Dragoon Trail.

This all started in 1835, when the Dragoons went on an expedition across Iowa to survey the land for future Americans. Dragoons were military foot soldiers who rode horses and explored the land. When the Dragoons first encountered Iowa and explored it, the Iowa they saw was very different from the Iowa we see today.

The Dragoons are said to have hated Iowa. It was all marsh, full of mosquitoes, and it became unbearable in the winter. They were also said to have seen the largest herd of buffalo ever, with around 5,000 individuals. Iowa was also chock-full of prairies; however, today we have lost 99.8% of them.

Stephen Watts Kearny, one of the Dragoons, escorted settlers and projected military dominance; he took New Mexico and California in 1846. Albert Miller Lea dealt with the reconnaissance and mapping of the Dragoon Trail and published notes on the Wisconsin territory also. Nathan Boone led Dragoon patrols, stretched survey changes and charted the arterial paths of settlement; he is memorialized in Boone County, which is named after him, and he is honored as the son who set the stage for American settlement. 

“The Dragoons are looking for a place to build a new fort,” Mason said. “They cover 1,000 miles. They’re actually going to leave, and they are going to follow the ridge between the Skunk River and the Des Moines River on their outward journey. Conveniently, we built Highway 163 right on top of it.”

The Dragoons cover in their writings, the prospect of coal, soil profiles and about the people and animals that lived here. They thought Iowa was going to become rich because of its coal, and it was going to be a great commodity. 

Mason walked the entire Dragoon Trail. It was 371 miles long. It took him 21 days to walk up the river. There was some help along the way from his wife, who followed along in her car.

“In each of these chapters, I’m trying to pull a strand from at least the Dragoons all the way forward to 2021 to tell small histories of Iowa in a hyper-connected way, which took six drafts, and I still don’t know that I did it,” Mason said. 

Mason also offered an interesting snippet from his book that told the tale of Boneyard Hollow:

“Just off the river’s west bay, tucked unassumingly along the winding main road of Dolliver Memorial State Park, lies a place with a name alluding to a gristly past. Boneyard Hollow, the shallow sandstone gorge slices through the park’s northern edge, shaded by oaks and maples, often quiet, save for bird song. An ancient buffalo jump, Boneyard Hollow, is only one of Iowa’s rare surviving testament to a way of life long predicting clouds and durian tiles packing miles… Shaggy mountains. Some move, and faster than man. Bison could kill with a horn or hoof. Still, human hunger demanded hunting…” 

Mason says that his book is a mile wide and an inch deep. One student of Mason’s said that it was a “gateway drug into Iowa history.” 

To learn more about Mason’s book, please visit his webpage.