HOME | COMPLETE TRIP LIST | HISTORY HOME | LOCATION GALLERY

A popular campground for Oregon Trail travelers, including members of the Donner Party who withstood one of the delays that resulted in their demise here as the nearby Blue River flooded in 1846. To reach the spring itself, use the parking lot on the west side of the park and walk the short trail shown on the kiosk by the parking lot. If it has rained recently, there will be a 10-foot waterfall that falls into the pool next to the spring. You will also see carvings in the rocks around the spring, including the name of the spring as coined by a member of the Donner Party.

The Alcove Spring Preservation Association puts out a brochure that is available at the site. Below is an excerpt from the brochure.

"Imagine...it's 1843. You and your family loaded food, clothing, utensils and a few keepsakes into a covered wagon and left in late April from Independence, MO., on the 2,200-mile trip along the Oregon Trail.

Your destination is the Willamette Valley in Oregon, with its promises of free, fertile land for farming and a new life.

You've been walking alongside the covered wagon for about 14 days and you reach the Big Blue River. The river is swollen after recent rains, and it's time to camp a few days, let the oxen rest and replenish your food supply with wild game, fish and honey. The Big Blue at Independence Crossing needs to fall a few feet to make the crossing safer.

Near your campsite is a small tributary, which you follow for about three-fourths of a mile and discover one of the most beautiful and serene sites along the Oregon Trail - Alcove Spring.

The spring, which is never know to have dried up even during severe Kansas droughts, flows from the side of the alcove [under the bridge] into the basin below the falls. Water from a wet-weather creek flows over a rocky outcrop and falls about 10 to 123 feet into the same pool.

Here you rest while enjoying the peace and solitude of Alcove Spring."