Santa Fe Trail

“ No moccasined track in the dust of the trail gave hint of any human presence near. Where to-day the Pullman car glides in smooth comfort, the old Santa Fé Trail lay like a narrow brown ribbon on the green desolation of Nature's unconquered domain. Out beyond the region of long-stemmed grasses, into the short-grass land, we pressed across a pathless field-of-the-cloth-of-green, gemmed with myriads of bright blossoms--broad acres on acres that the young years of a coming century should change into great wheat-fields to help fill the granaries of the world. ”

“ When these had worn too far another pair had sprung up, and in many places I counted eight distinct pairs of ruts running side by side across the prairie, each representing a distinct phase in the evolution of the Santa Fé Trail. At any point, if one looks far and long enough, one can find the original tracks that centuries ago were formed by the old prairie-schooners as they journeyed westward across the plains to Santa Fé.
The next town lay far across the plains beyond the horizon. I should have to hurry if I were to get any breakfast, but the riding was rough. ”

“ The early history of the Santa Fe Trail, which runs parallel with the Santa Fe Railroad for hundreds of miles, is somewhat obscured by mystery and tradition, but from historical data in possession of the Museum of New Mexico, at Santa Fe, it can be stated with a large degree of accuracy that the trail was started by Spanish explorers three hundred years ago. ”

“ The commerce of the Great Plains over that broad path through the wilderness, the Santa Fé Trail, was at its height, and immense trains rolled day after day toward the blue hills which guard the portals of New Mexico. Oxen, mules, and sometimes horses, tugged wearily week after week through the monotony of their long journey, their precious freight ever tempting [59] the wily nomads to plunder, dissimulation, and murder. ”

“ The line of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad, which practically runs over the Old Trail for nearly its whole length to the mountains, is a fertile field of isolated graves. The savage and soldier, the teamster and scout, the solitary trapper or hunter, and many others who have gone down to their death fighting with the relentless nomad of the plains, or have been otherwise ruthlessly cut off, mark with their last resting-places that well-worn pathway across the continent. ”

“ The bluest skies of a blue-sky land curved in fathomless majesty over the yellow valley of the Santa Fé. Against its borders loomed the silent mountain ranges--purple-shaddowed, silver-topped Ortiz and Jemez, Sandia and Sangre-de-Christo. Dusty and deserted lay the trail, save that here and there a group of dark-faced carriers of firewood prodded on their fagot-laden burros toward the distant town. As our wagons halted at the sandy borders of an arroyo the brown-clad form of a priest rose up from the shade of a group of scrubby piñon-trees beside the trail. ”

“ Of the famous men whose lives are so interwoven with the history of the Old Santa Fe Trail that the story of the great highway is largely made up of their individual exploits and acts of bravery, it has been my fortune to have known nearly all intimately, during more than a third of a century passed on the great plains and in the Rocky Mountains. ”

“ Which look is evermore a satisfying thing because it takes in all of life behind in its true proportion, where the forward look of youth sees only what comes next and nothing more. And looking back to-day it seems that, of the many times I walked the long miles of that old Santa Fe Trail, no journey over it stands out quite so clear-cut in my memory as the home trip after I had watched the going away of Eloise, and witnessed the flight of Ferdinand Ramero, and listened to the story of Jondo's life. ”

“ Thousands of years ago, the primitive savage of the American continent carried masses of pipe-stone from the sacred quarry in Minnesota across the vast wilderness of plains, to trade with the people of the far Southwest, over the same route that long afterward became the Santa Fe Trail ”

“ Cold Spring; Rabbit Ear Creek; Round Mound; Rock Creek; Point of Rocks; Rio Colorado; Ocaté Creek; Santa Clara Spring (Wagon Mound) ; Rio Mora; Rio Gallinas (Las Vegas) ; Ojo De Bernal Spring; San Miguel; Pecos Village; and finally Santa Fe, a distance of 750 miles from Independence, Missouri, the starting point.
The old Santa Fe Trail led from Franklin, Missouri, through Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and New Mexico. [Pg 11] It followed the Arkansas River to Cimarron Crossing (Fort Dodge) to La Junta, Colorado; then south, crossing the Raton Pass, joining the main trail at Santa Clara Spring. ”

“ The Walnut debouches into the Arkansas a short distance from where the railroad crosses the creek, and at this point, too, the trail from Fort Leavenworth merges into the Old Santa Fe. The broad pathway is very easily recognized here; for it runs over a hard, flinty, low divide, that has never been disturbed by the plough, and the traveller has only to cast his eyes in a northeasterly direction in order to see it plainly. ”

“ No spot could look more untouched by human life than this wind-ribbed and desolate palimpsest of sand on which layer on layer of history has been scratched. The old Santa Fe Trail, from armored Spaniard to Wells-Fargo days, ran directly over a corner of ruins since excavated. Before 1700 Father Kino came upon this remote house of the Morning Glow, as the Indians called it, and held mass in its empty rooms for the tribes of the region. Coronado the ubiquitous may have seen it since he speaks of a Great House built by Indians. ”

“ The first known expedition by Americans over the trail was made by the Mallet brothers, who arrived in Santa Fe, July 22, 1739. The first trader to follow the trail reached Santa Fe in 1763. It was not until 1804 that LaLande, a trapper and hunter, crossed the trail and made Santa Fe that year. Kit Carson was one of those who struck the trail in 1826, when he was but sixteen years of age. ”

“ By the advice of two experienced fur-traders returning from the mountains, the travellers determined upon the Santa Fé trail, probably because of the escort privileges in connection with the annual caravan just setting forth. Therein they made a serious mistake, for the route across the mountains from the upper Arkansas to Snake River valley was infinitely more difficult and dangerous than the ordinary Oregon Trail, by way of the North Platte, Sweetwater, and South Pass; it was also less frequented by experienced mountain men, who could offer advice and assistance to the amateur travellers. ”

“ No other town of its size in America has been the subject of and focus for as much good literature as Santa Fe. Pittsburgh and dozens of other big cities all put together have not inspired one tenth of the imaginative play that Santa Fe has inspired. Some of the transcontinental railroads probably carry as much freight in a day as went over the Santa Fe Trail in all the wagons in all the years they pulled over the Santa Fe Trail. ”

“ These Indians developed great hostility to the white man, and caravans on the trail were so frequently attacked, and so many tragedies stained the trail with the blood of women and children, that in 1823, Colonel Viscarra, Jefè Politicio, of New Mexico, commanded a battalion of Mexican troops in protecting the caravans on the Santa Fe trail. ”

“ Note.—The greater part of the information given in this brief history is taken from Twitchell on Leading Facts of New Mexico History.
[Pg 12]
THE SANTA FE TRAIL.
There are moanings on the trail,
From west and eastward bounders,
The host that’s passed forever,
That shall never know it more;
From men and fragile women,
From pioneers and traders,
Whose dying word was “Never,”
Whose pale souls went on before. ”

“ From Santa Fe to Fort Union, where the arsenal was located, the road runs through the deep, rocky gorge known as Apache Canyon. It is one of the wildest spots in the mountains, the walls on each side rising from one to two thousand feet above the Trail, which is within the range of ordinary cannon from every point, and in many places of point-blank rifle-shot. Granite rocks and sands abound, and the hills are covered with long-leafed pine. It is a gateway which, in the hands of a skilful engineer and one hundred resolute men, can be made perfectly impregnable. ”

“ One of the occupants was a padre from the mission in Santa Fe, so on the Old Trail right at the threshold of the mountains which had become hallowed with the blood and martyrdom of many brave men, Lone Star and John Redmond joined their hearts and hands.
“The passengers did all they could for Singing Bird and, being helpless to do more, went on their way. Putting the old woman on the pony’s back, this fearless maid and man stood for a moment watching. ”

“ There was always something exciting in those journeys from the Missouri to the mountains in the lumbering Concord coach. There was the constant fear of meeting the wily red man, who persistently hankered after the white man's hair. Then there was the playfulness of the sometimes drunken driver, who loved to upset his tenderfoot travellers in some arroya, long after the moon had sunk below the horizon.
It required about two weeks to make the trip from the Missouri River to Santa Fe, unless high water or a fight with the Indians made it several days longer. ”

“ Their primitive lodges contrasted strangely with the peaceful little sod-houses, dugouts, and white cottages of the incoming settlers on the public lands, with the villages struggling into existence, and above all with the rapidly moving cars; unmistakable evidences that the new civilization was soon to sweep the red men before it like chaff before the wind.
Farther to the west, a caravan of white-covered wagons loaded with supplies for some remote military post, the last that would ever travel the Old Trail, was slowly crawling toward the setting sun. ”

“ Bill Banney and Rex Krane had joined us now, for every hour we were learning to keep closer together. Jondo threw more wood on the fire, and we nestled about it in snug, homey fashion as if we were to listen to a fairy-tale--three children slipping fast out of childhood into the stern, hard plains life that tried men's souls. As we listened, the older men told of the perils as well as the fascinating adventures of trail life, that we might understand what lay before us in the unknown days. And then they told us stories of the plains, and of the quaint historic things of Santa Fé ”

“ In the majority of the States we find a moderate degree of enthusiasm for historic sites; sufficient at least to afford them adequate protection and insure their preservation. Some far-seeing societies are alive to the significance of the historic highways that penetrated the American wilderness and are marking them with permanent milestones. A notable example of this is the marking of the “Old Santa Fe Trail” by the people of Kansas—a movement in which Colorado and New Mexico might well join. ”

“ In spite of this protection, however, attacks by Indians were a common occurrence, [Pg 9] and every caravan had to carry arms and ammunition, and vigilance was never relaxed from the time they left the Arkansas River until they struck the plaza at Santa Fe.
Colonel Viscarra, a handsome, picturesque Spaniard, always mounted on a mettlesome thoroughbred, was probably the most dashing figure in the history of the Santa Fe trail. Tales of his gallantry and daring became folklore among the traders, pioneers and their descendants. ”

“ Twenty of us were conveying a party of women and children—the families of merchants and officers at Santa Fe—through the Indian country, on our way to that city, when the Comanches came down on us, in a swarm of hundreds, and finding there was no escaping a fight, we ran our wagons in a circle, shut the women and horses inside, and then it seemed as if hell was let loose upon us. ”

“ On it grew no vegetation at all, save the scanty sage-brush that can flourish where all other things die. Miles away, but clear enough to be only a few hundred yards, rose ranges of saw-toothed, evil-looking mountains, as barren as barrenness could be. Ahead lies the trail stretching beyond the traveller's vision [Pg 199] to the horizon. On the left runs a fence. Beyond the fence is the Santa Fé Railway. The telegraph poles and the distant mountains are the only objects that break the interminable flatness. The sky is cloudless and the heat of the sun intense. ”

“ Every eye was strained for something out of the ordinary. Even the horses of the officers and the mules of the supply-train were infected by something that seemed impending; they grew restless, stamped the earth, and vainly essayed to stampede, but were prevented by their hobbles and picket-pins.
Presently one of the scouts returned from over the divide, and reported to the general that an immense herd of buffalo was tearing down toward the Trail, and from the great clouds of dust they raised, which obscured the horizon, there must have been ten thousand of them. ”

“ With Indians approaching, [Pg 15]
The Navajos and Pawnees,
Kiowas and Comanche,
Creeping closer to the trail.
The children and the women,
Oh! ’tis hard that they should die.
Then the musket shots ring out
From cool men bent on killing,
Fighting for the ones they love,
Though ten to one outnumbered,
Until morning tints the sky
And with it ends the combat.
Then the town of Santa Fe,
Oh! Father, in Thy mercy—
And the women laugh and sing,
The tired men are weeping,
A thousand times repeated,
As men entered Santa Fe. ”

“ It was a strange little village, this Agua Fria. Its squat dwellings, with impenetrable adobe walls, had sat out there on the sandy edge of the dry Santa Fé River through many and many a lagging decade; a single trail hardly more than a cart-width across ran through it. A church, mud-walled and ancient, rose above the low houses, but of order or uniformity of outline there was none. Hands long gone to dust had shaped those crude dwellings on this sunny plain where only man decays, though what he builds endures. ”