New Santa Fe

When I was seven, I would saunter up the hill to an old burial ground called the New Santa Fe Cemetery, an area that felt as if it were a time capsule amid development.

Lying underneath parking lot pavement and the skeleton of where Hy-Vee once conducted business at 123rd and State Line are the invisible remains of a small hamlet called Oxford.

It’s no secret that towns such as Martin City were created after the railroad was laid out and settlement followed. Due to this progression, other towns, including New Santa Fe in Jackson Co., were all but deserted due to this new economic feat.

New Santa Fe was created out of the precursor to the railroad: the Santa Fe Trail.