This year marks the 200th anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail that connected traders in Missouri to Santa Fe. My wife had an ancestor who was a mule skinner on the Santa Fe Trail, and we retraced much of the route. I returned a couple years ago to fill in the missing parts.
Although there were a few tentative trips to Santa Fe by French traders from Kaskaskia and St. Louis even in the 1700s, the actual Santa Fe Trail originated in 1821, from Arrow Rock, Missouri, on the Missouri River and then moved further west to Independence and Westport/Kansas City. That was newly settled country along the rolling hills south of the river. In later years, it started at those places once the river traffic proved reliable in shipping goods to the west. The trail continued through the Civil War and up to the arrival of the railroad.

Of course, once the wagons hit the plains of Kansas the scenery became truly expansive. The plains stretch out forever and you have a sense that you are inside of a shallow bowl looking out to the edges in the far distance. That view was better than the hind end of an ox or a mule, which was mostly what else there was to see.
After a few hundred miles the trail began to follow the Arkansas River. One of the landmarks was Pawnee Rock, now a small town in Kansas. The actual rock was a notable sandstone protrusion that could be seen from a distance. It was described as one of the finest sights ever beheld by man. Really? Having visited Pawnee Rock, I would say that it is a considerably better sight than the rear end of an ox. Perhaps prairie madness was beginning to set in. Sadly, the rock was partially demolished by the railroad, so it isn’t quite as tall as it once was. The train doesn’t stop at Pawnee Rock anymore, so a few years ago they converted the station to the town library. That is an old pioneer grave marked on the slope of Pawnee Rock.
The route follows the Arkansas River. I apparently did not find the river very photogenic since I never took a single photo of it in my several trips along the trail.
The Santa Fe Trail saw a lot of activity during the American/Mexican War in 1846-48. In 1846, General Stephen Kearny led troops from Fort Leavenworth down the trail to New Mexico. Kearny took possession of Nuevo Mexico for the United States in a proclamation at Las Vegas (NM) and then continued to on take possession of Santa Fe. There was no real opposition. The Mexican Governor, Manuel Armijo, was in no position to put up a defense. He was probably more interested in continuing trade than defense. Mexico City was very far away. The main sticking point seemed to be one of religion and Kearny was quick to underscore the notion of freedom of religion in the US and that Catholicism would not be threatened.
The annexation of New Mexico Territory opened up more trade, but the Plains Indians still threatened commerce. Several army posts were established along the route. Fort Larned was a major stop along the trail. It was established in 1859 to protect the wagon trains on the middle Kansas part of the trail. It is well preserved today as a national historic site. We have images of Fort Apache from old toy sets or maybe television shows. Fort Larned never had any walls. It had some defenses from a creek that ran by, but you could pretty well see anyone coming from a distance.

The buildings are constructed of local sandstone and have served as a convenient place for soldiers or visitors to carve their names or the names of their wives or girlfriends in the stone. The fort was decommissioned and taken over as a ranch for several decades before becoming a historic site.

Fort Larned is one of the several places along the trail where you can still see the wagon ruts. There was a lot of wagon traffic and, unlike what we see on TV, the wagons did not move in single file. The wagons moved several abreast, so the ruts are not a single deep impression but a series of elongated swales almost as wide as a modern highway. They are not easy to see in the grass unless you walk out into the prairie. (That’s me at a much, much younger age.)

The trail continued west along the river past what became Dodge City (Ft. Dodge) and crossed into what became Colorado. The next stop was Bent’s (Old) Fort near present day La Junta, Colorado. The Bent brothers operated the fort as a trading post and a way station for the Santa Fe Trail traders. The historic site is a reconstruction of the original fort, made of adobe. It actually conforms to what we think of as a fortress.


The Bents were essentially the last “eastern” outpost on the trail. The proprietors, Charles Bent and William Bent and Ceran St. Vrain, established a trading company that built the fort in 1833. It was destroyed in 1848, possibly as a result of a devastating cholera epidemic among the Indians, and later reestablished at a location near present Lamar, Colorado. Charles Bent was named Territorial Governor of New Mexico and moved to Taos but was assassinated during the Taos Revolt of 1847.
Going west from Bent’s Fort the traders were approaching the Rocky Mountains. The terrain was still relatively flat, but the elevation had been steadily rising. The taller grass gave way to the shorter stubble and buffalo grass of the high plains. The front range came into view on clear days. The two Spanish Peaks were the first mountains that they saw close up, but they would then climb up and over Raton Pass, at 7,834 feet, and cross into New Mexico.


The terrain was much different in New Mexico. The trail skirted the east side of the Sangre de Cristo mountains. There were small Hispano villages in places. Cimarron was established in the 1850s and later had a notorious wild west town reputation. It had an established mill (the Aztec Mill) in the 1860s that still exists today. Later on, Abraham Lincoln’s White House chef, Henri Lambert, established a large hotel (now the St. James Hotel) that was frequented by everybody who was anybody in the old west. There were 22 murders in and around the hotel, which, of course, is haunted.
Further west the wagon trains pulled into Fort Union, a huge military depot that housed 4,000 soldiers and suttler/merchants that catered to the travelers’ every need. Fort Union was initially established in 1851 but enlarged and rebuilt three times. The national historic site includes the ruins of the second fort, built of adobe but now mostly melted away. The fort remained in service until 1891. Visiting the fort can be a somewhat spooky experience on a foggy day with a few snow flurries.


There was a hospital at the fort that provided medical attention. Blacksmith and wheelwright shops worked on the wagons. Supplies were bought for the last leg of the trip. The wagon ruts are still visible where the trail entered into the fort.

The wagons were beginning their approach to Santa Fe, only a few days more on the trail. They passed other landmarks, like Wagon Mound and Starvation Peak. They crossed the Pecos River, not much of a river as it flows out of the mountains. The mostly abandoned Pecos Mission and the Pecos Pueblo were located there. The old Pueblo was where Coronado was told about the city of riches, Quivera, that existed out on the Great Plains. In 1541, he roamed across Kansas looking for it and got as far as the vicinity of Salina before it dawned on him that he had been told a tale just to get him out of town. Later a large Spanish mission was constructed at the Pueblo and the residents were more or less pacified — for a while. The mission was destroyed during the 1680 Pueblo Revolt that forced the Spanish out of New Mexico for over a decade. On their eventual return, the Spanish constructed a smaller mission church and the community coexisted for almost a century until disease and attacks by the Apaches drove most of the residents away. By 1838 it was abandoned. Only the earliest Santa Fe traders found any permanent residents. Much like Fort Union, the adobe walls are slowly melting away after 200 years.


Also, on this last stretch of the trail the route goes over Glorieta Pass, the divide between the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers. During the Civil War there was a battle fought here between Union Troops, some from Ft. Union, and Confederate invaders from Texas. The rebels were sent packing back to Texas. There are historical markers in the area, and I think an old bridge that survives from the time of the Battle of Glorieta Pass. This was one of the westernmost battles of the Civil War, albeit not a huge one.
The next stop is Santa Fe.

By now you probably feel that you have actually made the trip.

Don’t relax. You have to unload the wagons, make new purchases, and start the trip back. The weather is turning.

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