In 1805, Daniel Boone’s sons, Nathan Boone and his brother Daniel Morgan Boone, seized on Nathan’s recent discovery of a salt lick more than 100 miles west on Salt Creek in Howard County. The salt lick, named such because of the deer and other animals that came to lick the salt, was a great find. By boiling down gallons of this salty water, the Boones could extract salt used for preserving meat and other tasks.
They soon established a sizable extraction operation at this site, hauling the salt out by boat. The route they traveled to the lick started as a Native American trace, however, as travel increased it grew to be a trail across Eastern Missouri. During this time, they began to describe the bounteous country surrounding the Boone’s Lick, which looked much like the land around Lexington, Kentucky. Their stories stirred migration fever in the most intrepid settlers.
Additional settlements spread along the north bank of the Missouri River, although the continued threat of Indian attacks kept most pioneers from settling in the area. Boats hauled some goods into the area, but the overland route continued to develop north of the river where the topography was more forgiving.
As the War of 1812 ended and hostilities between the white settlers and Indians diminished, a great pent-up demand was unleashed for land west of the Mississippi River. The trail that Nathan and Daniel Boone had cut in the early 1800s plunged to the heart of the fertile land near the salt lick. The pioneers called this area Boonslick, and it captured their imaginations.
Almost overnight, the town of Franklin appeared (1816) and boomed along the northern edge of the Missouri River a bit south of Boone’s Salt Lick. The route that had been gradually extending westward with limited traffic suddenly had to handle thousands moving west with their wagons, families, and livestock. What for a short time may have been best described as a “trail,” by necessity was now a “road.”