Volume 13 , Issue 25

The Santa Fe Trail

The History of Oklahoma book by Thoburn and Holcomb, also had this interesting piece about the Santa Fe Trail. It was 3 March 1825, approved by an Act of Congress, the President of the United States was authorized to cause a road to be marked out from the western frontier of Missouri to the confines of New Mexico and providing that three commissioners would be appointed to select and survey the proposed route and to secure the consent of the Indian tribes occupying the lands through which the road was to be laid out.

Benjamin H. Reeves, George C. Sibley and Thomas Mather were named as commissioners. Acting in that capacity they negotiated treaties with the Great and Little Osage and Kaw Indians and performed the work of locating the proposed road in 1825-6-7. This highway of international commerce across the Great Plains became best known as the Santa Fe Trail. For a distance of about 70 miles this road passed over Oklahoma soil, entering what is now Texas county, Oklahoma, from the north and passing, in a southwesterly direction across Cimarron county.

As originally laid out, the eastern terminus of the road to New Mexico was at Fort Osage, on the southern bank of the Missouri River about 30 miles below the mouth of the Kansas River. The western terminus was at Taos, New Mexico. A few years later the eastern starting point was changed to Westport (part of the Kansas City, Missouri), while the western destination was at Santa Fe, New Mexico. This historic highway soon became an important factor in the development of the West and Southwest.

Manufactured goods of all kinds were shipped to the trading posts of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains, from the East, as well as to the Mexican settlements in the Valleys of the pPecos and Rio Grande. Bales of wool, bars of silver bullion, furs and buffalo hides were hauled to the Missouri River from the West.

Large freight wagons (Conestoga wagons) were designed and built at Pittsburgh especially for the overland traffic. They were generally drawn by mules or oxen. Traders traveled in companies of caravans of considerable number for mutual protection. Along the dusty paths tramped and camped part of the army which helped to extend the national domain in the war with Mexico.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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