SANTA FE TRAIL

The Santa Fe Trail was a major overland route for westward expansion during the 1800s. Like the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest, it originated in Independence, Missouri. The Santa Fe Trail, whose terminus was Santa Fe in north-central New Mexico, proceeded westward along the prairie to Great Bend, Kansas. From there the route split into three branches. The western trail, also called the Taos Trail, followed the Arkansas River west to the Sangre de Cristo Range of the Rocky Mountains. Travelers then went due south through La Veta Pass (in south-central Colorado) into New Mexico. The middle trail also followed the Arkansas River westward into present day Colorado, traversing the grasslands in the southeastern corner of the state and following Raton Pass (south of present day Trinidad, Colorado) into New Mexico. The shortest route (and, due to Indian attacks, the most dangerous) cut southwest through Kansas, into the Cimarron Valley, and crossed the northwest corner of Oklahoma into New Mexico. From Santa Fe, another route, the Old Spanish Trail, extended westward to Los Angeles. After Mexico gained independence from Spain (1821), Santa Fe became the center of the country's trade with the United States. The Santa Fe Trail was about 1,200 miles (1,930 kilometers) long and took between 40 and 60 days to travel.

The Santa Fe Trail was first traversed in 1821 by Virginia-born trader William Becknell (1796?–1865), who in 1822 used wagons on the route. During the next two decades, less than one hundred wagons each year used the trail; by the late 1860s, the average number climbed to more than five thousand per year. The Santa Fe Trail remained a major commercial route until the 1880s, when the transcontinental railroad was completed.

See also: California, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon Trail, Santa Fe