The Santa Fe Trail
⎯⎯⎯
Who Traveled The Trail?
Santa Fe Trail National Scenic Byway
Near where you are standing was one of the great overland trade routes of the 19th century. Connecting Franklin, Missouri, with Santa Fe, New Mexico, the trail ran 900 miles through rough terrain hostile to all but the hardiest traders set on making a profit. Unlike the emigrant trails to the north, trade moved in both directions.
Pioneered in 1821 by William Becknell, the trail quickly became a busy trade route handling hundreds of wagon trains a year and carrying goods worth millions of dollars in today's currency. With the arrival of the railroad in 1880, the era of the Santa Fe Trail came to an end.
Sights nearby
Hertzstein Museum, Clayton
This museum, housed in a former church,
offers informative exhibits about the
Santa Fe Trail as well as history of the
Local area.
Point of Rocks
Reachable by a private road off of
Highway 56, this outcropping was an
important landmark and campsite on the
Santa Fe Trail.
Springer Museum An informational exhibit here explains the importance of the Santa Fe Trail to the region.
International Trade
Route
Opened in 1821 to North American
travelers, the trail soon became an
international thoroughfare of commerce
connecting Mexico and Santa Fe to eastern
cities such as New Orleans, New York, and
on to ports in Europe.
Who Traveled the Trail?
Along with American and Mexican
traders, there were many others
who traveled the trail: Indians, fur
trappers, buffalo hunters,
adventurers, scouts such as Kit
Carson, soldiers protecting the
caravans or supplying the forts that
were built along the trail, journalists
and what Josiah Gregg, author of a
chronicle of the trail, called, the
"amateur tourist and the listless
loafer.” Even invalids, hoping that
hardship and fresh air would
restore them to health, set out on
the monumental trek. Very few
women made the journey.
Few written accounts survive of the experiences of Hispanic traders from this period, but from the start, Mexicans and Hispanics traveled east taking silver, mules, buffalo hides, and beaver furs (called "soft gold") to waiting markets in Missouri. By the end of the trail era, Hispanic travelers comprised up to 90% of the trail traffic.
Susan Shelby Magoffin
A young, jut-married nineteen-year-old from
Kentucky, she accompanied her trader
husband from Missouri to Santa Fe and south
into Mexico in 1846. She chronicled the
journey in Down the Santa Fe Trail and into
Mexico in 1847. She was thought to be the
first Anglo woman to make the journey.
Military
Beginning in the late 1840s, the Santa Fe Trail
became an important military road Soldiers
traveled with wagon trains protecting them from
Indian maids Posts such as Fort Larned, Fort
Dodge, and Fort Union were but along the rout.
The military then was involved in supplying the
Garrisons posted to the forts.
Josiah Gregg
One of the most famous accounts of travel on the
trail was written by a sickly young man from
Missouri who joined a caravan in 1831, bound for
Santa Fa. His health restored, Josiah Gregg
ultimately made the trip eight times and became a
Santa Fe trader engaging in trade between the
United States and Mexico. Whimen in 1844, his
book, Commence of the Prairies, details the
adventures of a trail crossing and life in Santa Fe
before the outbreak of the Mexican-American War.
The Romeros
In the late 1850s much of the freighting of
goods on the Santa Fe Trail was conducted by
native New Mexicans. The Romeros of Las
Vegas was one family which prospered in the
commerce of the trail. These traders and many
like them formed the large Hispanic mercantile
class of New Mexico in the mid-19th century.
Topics.
this page online
Location. 36° 27.42′ N, 103° 10.25′ W. Marker is in Clayton, New Mexico, in Union County. It is on U.S. 64/412 0.1 miles east of North West Avenue, on the left when traveling east. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 75 Highway 64, Clayton NM 88415, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in Eastern New Mexico. It is also in the American Southwest, in the Mountain West, on the Great Plains, on the Southern Plains, on the High Plains, and on the Santa Fe Trail Corridor. Globally, it is in North America, the Rocky Mountains, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once New Spain, the Comancherνa, the Dust Bowl, and the Republic of Texas.
Other nearby markers. At least 8 other markers are within 2 miles of this marker, measured as the crow flies: Santa Fe Trail - Cimarron Cutoff / Clayton (a few steps from this marker); Santa Fe Trail (within
Credits. This page was last revised on December 13, 2020. It was originally submitted on December 10, 2020, by Craig Doda of Napoleon, Ohio. This page has been viewed 501 times since then and 37 times this year. Photos: 1. submitted on December 13, 2020, by J. Makali Bruton of Washington, District of Columbia. 2, 3. submitted on December 10, 2020, by Craig Doda of Napoleon, Ohio. • Devry Becker Jones was the editor who published this page.
