My non-fiction article, "Uniontown and Plowboy - Potawatomi Ghost Towns: Enigmas of the Oregon-California Trail has been published in the Winter 2014-15 ed. of Kansas History. Get your copy from the Kansas Historical Society Store online.
Abstract
Uniontown is a ghost town of the Oregon-California Trail near Topeka, Kansas. Tom Ellis illuminates the enigmatic history of this ill-fated community founded in 1848 where little physical trace of the town exists today. The influence of Kansa Indians, French traders and ardent missionaries is reflected in the precursors to the Uniontown story. Uniontown was also the last effort of the government to unify separate bands of the Potawatomi people into one community. It was an important commercial center and it was also an ill-fated attempt to force together the Potawatomi who were pushed from place to place by the government. Uniontown was an artificial unification of the Potawatomi at a commercially essential location on the Oregon-California Trail. At Uniontown the tribe was plagued by cholera, corruption and economic predators. Uniontown was never embraced as the unifying center of Potawatomi life. After attempts to unify the Potawatomi the government changed course and pursued a policy that divided them. Competition for commercial activity on the Oregon-California Trail moved to other prospering towns in the area and Uniontown withered.
