50 Fun Facts About Santa Fe Trail

Which future frontier scout ran away from a Missouri saddle shop at 16 to join a caravan on the Santa Fe Trail?

Kit Carson's master advertised a reward of just one cent for the runaway apprentice, and no one ever claimed it.

Stretches of the Santa Fe Trail were later absorbed into which famous American highway of the motor age?

Route 66 took over stretches of the National Old Trails Road, an early ocean-to-ocean auto road that had followed the old wagon ruts across the West.

Which actor played George Armstrong Custer alongside Errol Flynn in the 1940 Hollywood film Santa Fe Trail?

Ronald Reagan's Custer is shown, fictionally, as a West Point classmate of Flynn's Jeb Stuart. The film ranked among the higher-grossing releases of its year.

The name of Santa Fe, the old capital where the Santa Fe Trail ended, translates into English as what?

Holy Faith is short for a far longer original name: the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.

What reached Santa Fe in February 1880 and ended the Santa Fe Trail's long career as a commercial highway?

The railroad made the long wagon haul pointless, and the trail faded into history. The tracks had already crested the mountains on the Colorado line in late 1878.

Which future president led the National Old Trails Road Association, whose highway followed the Santa Fe Trail out west?

Harry S. Truman took the post in 1926 and drove the road from coast to coast to meet members in every state, writing home to his wife along the way.

Santa Fe Trail freighter Alexander Majors, who gave every employee a Bible, later co-founded which famous mail relay?

The Pony Express grew out of his freighting firm. His first trip down the trail in 1848 set a round-trip record of 92 days.

By the 1840s, heavy Santa Fe Trail traffic had cut which great herd animal off from its seasonal grazing land?

Bison herds lost vital pasture to the wagon traffic, and with overhunting the species collapsed, undermining the Plains nations that lived by the hunt.

Santa Fe Trail trade became possible in 1821 when Mexico broke free of which European power that had barred outsiders?

Spain's soldiers had arrested earlier American traders near Santa Fe and marched them south to prison; the new Mexican government welcomed their goods instead.

What did the first Santa Fe Trail trading party famously bring home to Missouri at the start of 1822?

Silver coins were a windfall for the traders' neighbors, because the state had been short of hard currency ever since the Panic of 1819.

Which Missouri trader is called the Father of the Santa Fe Trail for leading the first trading party there in 1821?

William Becknell reached Santa Fe in November 1821, just as newly self-governing Mexico lifted its ban on trade with outsiders, and sold out within a month.

Which Missouri town, the Queen City of the Trails, launched caravans on the Santa Fe, Oregon and California trails?

Independence shared its first miles with the emigrant roads: Oregon- and California-bound wagons split off to the northwest near Gardner, Kansas.

Which general led the Army of the West down the Santa Fe Trail in 1846 and took Santa Fe without a battle?

Stephen Kearny seized the capital in August without firing a shot, set up a new government and then marched on toward California.

What scarce resource made the Santa Fe Trail's shorter desert cutoff far riskier than the longer Mountain Route?

Water was so scarce that the first wagon party in 1822 nearly died of thirst, yet most traders took the cutoff anyway because it was shorter and faster.

What did Santa Fe Trail freighters increasingly prefer over mules to pull wagons, since raiders valued them less?

Oxen offered greater hauling power, and because raiding parties had little use for them, a caravan they pulled made a less tempting target.

Which Plains nation, whose territory the Santa Fe Trail skirted, demanded payment for letting caravans pass through?

The Comanche understood what the caravans were worth and asked compensation for passage, while American merchants saw them as one more market.

Which land deal put Missouri in American hands, opening the way for U.S. traders to use the Santa Fe Trail?

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 nearly doubled the size of the United States, and Missouri became the jumping-off point for trade with Santa Fe.

Which adobe trading post on the Santa Fe Trail's Mountain Route dealt with the Cheyenne and Arapaho?

Bent's Fort was for years the only major American settlement between Missouri and New Mexico's towns; a 1976 reconstruction stands on the Colorado site.

The Santa Fe Trail's pioneer trader served in the War of 1812 under a son of which famous frontiersman?

Daniel Boone's son Daniel Morgan captained the Mounted Rangers company, and the trader later managed the family's old salt works in central Missouri.

Which river gives its name to the shorter Santa Fe Trail cutoff that most traders chose over the Mountain Route?

The Cimarron branch left the main road in southwestern Kansas, cut across open desert and rejoined the mountain branch in New Mexico.

Which pass on the Colorado–New Mexico border gave Mountain Route caravans on the Santa Fe Trail an arduous climb?

Raton Pass tops out at 7,834 feet, and Interstate 25 crosses the mountains through the same gap.

Which river did the Santa Fe Trail meet at Great Bend, Kansas, and then follow upstream toward Colorado?

The Arkansas carried Mountain Route travelers deep into Colorado, while the cutoff crossed it in southwestern Kansas and struck out across the desert.

In which Kansas town on the Santa Fe Trail did the Osage sign a treaty granting wagons a right-of-way?

Council Grove takes its name from that treaty council, held under an oak tree, and the town's Main Street is the old trail itself.

On which sandstone landmark in Kansas, about halfway to Santa Fe, did Santa Fe Trail travelers carve their names?

Pawnee Rock was so crowded with carvings by 1848 that one soldier could find no room for his own name. Much of it was later hauled away as building stone.

At which Army post, built in 1827 to protect the Santa Fe Trail, was the Army of the West outfitted in 1846?

Fort Leavenworth is the oldest permanent settlement in Kansas, and some 1,700 regulars and volunteers mustered there before starting down the trail.

What personal trouble pushed the Santa Fe Trail's pioneer trader to gamble on a trading trip to Santa Fe in 1821?

Heavy debts had already landed him briefly in jail, and a judge gave him until early 1822 to pay his creditors or go back.

Before wagons first rolled down the Santa Fe Trail in 1822, how had traders carried their goods to Santa Fe?

Goods went on pack animals, which limited how much a party could sell, so the 1822 trip altered the route to find ground wide enough for wagons.

Which short-lived republic sent a failed 1841 expedition to win the Santa Fe Trail's trade and half of New Mexico?

Texas sent the expedition under President Mirabeau Lamar, but its members were captured and force-marched some 2,000 miles to Mexico City as prisoners.

Which federal agency commemorates the Santa Fe Trail's old route as an official historic trail?

The National Park Service also preserves two of the trail's forts and a rebuilt trading post as historic sites of their own.

The Santa Fe Trail first began at which Missouri River town, largely destroyed by flooding in the 1820s?

Franklin's residents rebuilt a short distance away on higher ground, founding the town of New Franklin.

Which New Mexico post, built where the Santa Fe Trail's two branches met, became the Southwest's main Army depot?

Fort Union was founded in 1851 after the Army decided that garrisons in town left soldiers too distracted by temptations such as alcohol.

Which Kansas post, once called Camp Alert because its tiny garrison stayed watchful, guarded the Santa Fe Trail?

Fort Larned began in 1859 as a camp of about 50 men, and from 1865 no merchant could travel west of it without an armed escort.

Which trader, sent west for his failing health, wrote the 1844 Santa Fe Trail classic Commerce of the Prairies?

Josiah Gregg crossed the plains four times by 1840 and, in 1834, brought the first printing press to New Mexico.

Which teenage Kentucky bride kept a celebrated diary of her 1846 journey down the Santa Fe Trail?

Susan Magoffin believed she was the first American lady to make the trip, and her journal became a much-used source for histories of the period.

Which famed mountain man was killed on the Santa Fe Trail in 1831 after riding ahead of his caravan to scout?

Jedediah Smith's body was never recovered; his companions learned his fate weeks later, when some of his belongings turned up in Santa Fe.

Which organization placed the Madonna of the Trail statues along the old Santa Fe Trail route?

The Daughters of the American Revolution commissioned twelve identical monuments to pioneer women, one for each state on the National Old Trails Road.

The 1940 Errol Flynn film Santa Fe Trail focuses largely on which abolitionist rather than on the trade route?

John Brown, played by Raymond Massey, drives the plot of what was the seventh film to pair Flynn with Olivia de Havilland.

Which 1848 treaty turned the Santa Fe Trail from an international trade route into a road inside the United States?

Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war with Mexico, and freighting then boomed as wagons hauled supplies to the Army's new southwestern forts.

Which everyday trade good fetched startling prices when the first Santa Fe Trail traders reached New Mexico in 1821?

Cotton cloth and calico sold for three dollars a yard, a sum then unheard of, because isolated Santa Fe was eager for manufactured goods.

Which 1862 Civil War battle, fought on the Santa Fe Trail southeast of Santa Fe, forced a Confederate retreat?

Glorieta Pass turned when the Confederates' supply wagons were destroyed, ending their bid to push north along the base of the Rockies.

Besides Missouri, Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico, which fifth present-day state holds a stretch of the Santa Fe Trail?

Oklahoma's panhandle carried the desert cutoff past the site of Boise City on its way from Kansas to New Mexico.

How did frontiersman Uncle Dick Wootton profit from Santa Fe Trail traffic over the Mountain Route's hardest climb?

Charging tolls on a road he built with the approval of two territorial legislatures earned him about $600 a month, though Native travelers often passed free.

Which New Mexico governor left Santa Fe in 1846 rather than fight the U.S. army advancing down the Santa Fe Trail?

Manuel Armijo set up his defense in a canyon southeast of the city, then decided not to fight before the American army was even in sight.

Which Santa Fe Trail freighter won a famous wager in 1848 by riding from Santa Fe to Missouri in under six days?

F. X. Aubry posted spare mounts along the route and finished in 5 days and 16 hours despite rain and mud, earning the nickname Skimmer of the Plains.

Which Missouri senator, nicknamed Old Bullion, petitioned Congress to fund a survey of the Santa Fe Trail?

Thomas Hart Benton's petition led to an 1825 survey party that also negotiated safe passage for wagons with the Kansa and Osage nations.

The Mormon Battalion followed the Santa Fe Trail in 1846 on a march of nearly 2,000 miles that ended in which city?

San Diego was the end of a march that began in Iowa, and beyond Santa Fe the battalion built a wagon road to California as it went.

On the plaza of which Santa Fe Trail town did a U.S. general claim New Mexico for the United States in 1846?

Las Vegas had been founded only in 1835, on a Mexican land grant, and was prospering as a stop for the caravans when the army arrived.

Which disease swept the Plains tribes in 1849, the year the Santa Fe Trail's great adobe trading post was abandoned?

Cholera struck the Cheyenne and their neighbors, and the post's owner moved his headquarters north to the South Platte.

A leading Santa Fe Trail trader, New Mexico's first American civil governor, was killed in an 1847 revolt in which town?

Taos was where the governor kept his home and a store, and he had traveled there that January without military protection.

In Holling C. Holling's 1942 children's book Tree in the Trail, which kind of tree watches the Santa Fe Trail grow?

Cottonwood from the dead tree is finally carved into a yoke that travels down the trail to Santa Fe in 1834.