Santa Fe Trail in Kansas

A Kansas Portrait

The Santa Fe Trail was the most important route to the West from the Missouri River to Santa Fe, New Mexico, before the era of the railroads. It was used extensively by traders, freighters, Pikes Peakers, and the military from its survey by the federal government in 1825 until the 1870s. Of its approximate 750 miles, two-thirds of the route lay in Kansas. It also passed through portions of Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico.

On September 1, 1821, Captain William Becknell and a party of traders left Arrow Rock, Missouri, to trade horses and mules with the Indians and hunt wild game on the plains. The expedition met a troop of Mexican soldiers in November and traveled with them to Santa Fe, where they were greeted warmly. Their trade goods, including calico and other printed cloth, sold at high prices in the isolated Spanish town. The Becknell party returned to Missouri on January 30, 1822, after only 48 days travel. Profits from the expedition were so high that other trading ventures were organized almost immediately. Thus began the lucrative trade along the Santa Fe Trail.

Unlike the Oregon Trail, which also cut across Kansas but was a highway for settlers, the Santa Fe Trail's traffic was mostly traders and the military. This was an active military road during the Mexican War (1846-1848) and afterwards served as a supply route for military posts in New Mexico and Arizona Territories. In addition to traders' caravans, stage and mail lines often followed the trail and set up stations along the route. The completion of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway to Santa Fe in 1880 ended the trail's reign in the West.

Numerous segments of the trail were considered much safer to travel than others. Those posing greater risks to the traveler and a liability to traders with their cargoes were found on the central and southwestern parts of the trail.

One such area was known as the Jornado portion, which was located on the "dry routes" to Santa Fe. It lay on what was known as the Cimarron cut-off. This uninhabitable desert region, as it was known to the early caravans and travelers, encompassed an area bounded on the north by the present-day city of Cimarron to the Cimarron River on the south.

The word Jornado, when translated from Spanish to English, means a long journey. This approximate 50 to 60 mile stretch was usually devoid of water during the dry season and was considered by those who traveled the region to be traversed without delay. Not only was water a scarce commodity but also the trail markings were invisible with no landmarks to guide the traveler. It was not until the mid-1830s, during an uncommonly wet year, that wagons were to leave their imprints in the form of permanent ruts. It was only then that the trail could be traveled with any degree of certainty.

While traveling through this region in 1822, it was recounted that one large company of men and animals nearly succumbed to thirst and were only able to satisfy this need after the men had killed buffalo and drank the blood.

It was also in this region that famed mountain man and explorer Jedediah Smith, while on his initial trip to Santa Fe, was killed by the Comanches while scouting ahead of his wagon train in search of the Cimarron River and water. In spite of the dangers, the Jornado continued to be traveled as it allowed a shorter route to Santa Fe than the more northerly mountain route.

Historians note more than 130 trail-related sites along the Kansas portion of the Santa Fe Trail, including segments of trail ruts, campgrounds, forts, trading posts, battle sites, and burials. Several Kansas trail sites are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.