Host 2012 OCTA Convention
August 6-11, HISTORIC LAWRENCE, KANSAS
The 2012 OCTA Convention will be a multi-theme convention as suggested by our convention theme of Trails, Tribes and Territories. Our bus tours, speakers, and other events will interpret these themes, all of which occurred during trail years.
For the past 30 years, OCTA has been at the very forefront of researching, preserving, marking and publicizing the trails. Their efforts have led to the discovery of countless visible trail remnants. They have battled and sought compromises with those who planned projects that would have disturbed or destroyed trail ruts. OCTA has supported and advocated for legislation which has promoted the cause of trail preservation and public awareness. They have encouraged trail scholarship to broaden our understanding and appreciation of the overland trails experience and its impact on American History.
OCTA has and will continue to accomplish much of its mission through partnerships with both public and private entities throughout its national area to complete preservation, interpretation, marking and promotion projects along the emigrant trails. OCTA is a long-standing member of the Partnership for the National Trails System.
The Trails Head Chapter of the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA) benefits the community by researching, exploring, mapping, marking, protecting and bringing the historic emigrant trails of the greater Kansas City area to life. Our chapter area is the greater Kansas City area to west of Topeka.
Not many people recognize the significance of our chapter area in history, so the members of the Trails Head Chapter have set a goal to preserve the historic trails in our chapter area and educate people about them. The chapter's name, Trails Head, highlights our chapter area as one of the key beginning points of the entire Oregon, California and Santa Fe National Historic Trail systems. Additionally, our chapter area is the only place where these three major trails are one and the same.
Our area is also home to several other historic trails and routes for emigration, commerce and military purposes. The early 19th Century towns of Independence and Westport began as "jumping off" points from the Missouri River, and they were widely used to outfit the wagon trains for their long journeys west. Although not founded until the mid-1850s, Lawrence and Topeka, KS, were traversed by the Oregon and California Trails.
Trails Head Chapter helps to bring this important chapter of American history to life by:
- Holding tours of local trail sites and trail routes,
- Erecting markers at important sites and along trail ruts, and
- Sponsoring events and publishing brochures and newsletters about the thousands of people who traveled the Emigrant Trails to make a new home in the American West.
As with our parent OCTA organization, Trails Head Chapter also accomplishes much of its above initiatives through partnerships, both public and private.