The Santa Fe Trail was a historic 19th century transportation route across southwestern North America connecting Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico.
In 1821 the land beyond Missouri was a vast uncharted region called home to great buffalo herds and unhappy Indians angered over the continual westward expansion of the white man. Before Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, the Spanish banned trade between Santa Fe and the United States. After independence, Mexico encouraged trade. Though numerous dangers awaited him, Captain William Becknell was determined to make the trip through waterless plains and war-like Indians to trade with the distant Mexicans in New Mexico. On September 1, 1821, Becknell left Franklin, Missouri with five trusted companions, blazing the path that would become known as the Santa Fe Trail.
On his first trip, Becknell loaded manufactured goods from Missouri onto a pack train to trade for furs, gold, silver, and other goods in New Mexico. However, by his third trip Becknell had found a passable wagon route, thus beginning the many wagon trains heading to the southwest. Credited as the “Father of the Santa Fe Trail,” Becknell continued to make multiple trips along the trail, profiting enormously on his daring travels. Soon many traders were traveling the Santa Fe Trail.
It served as a vital commercial and military highway until the arrival of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880. At first an international trade route between the United States and Mexico, it served as the 1846 U.S. invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican-American War
After the U.S. acquisition of the Southwest, the trail helped open the region to U.S. economic development and settlement, playing a vital role in the expansion of the U.S. into the lands it had acquired. The road route is commemorated today by the National Park Service as the Santa Fe National Historic Trail. A highway route that roughly follows the trail's path through Colorado and northern New Mexico has been designated the Santa Fe Trail National Scenic Byway.
Young Kids - Click here to color the states that the Trail traveled through.
Older Kids - Click here to create a Route Map of the Santa Fe Trail around 1845
Or click here for a route map and find out how close you live to the Trail.
The eastern end of the trail was in the central Missouri town of Franklin on the north bank of the Missouri River. The route across Missouri first used by Becknell followed portions of the existing Osage Trace. West of Franklin the trail crossed the Missouri near Arrow Rock, after which it followed roughly the route of present-day U.S. Route 24. It passed north of Marshall, through Lexington to Fort Osage, then to present-day Independence. After 1827 Independence was also one of the historic "jumping off points" for the Oregon and California Trails.
West of Independence in the State of Missouri, it roughly followed the route of U.S. Route 56 to the present-day town of Olathe. The section of the trail between present-day Independence and Olathe was also used by emigrants on the California and Oregon Trails, which branched off to the northwest near Gardner, Kansas.
From Olathe, the trail passed through the area of the present-day towns of Baldwin City, Burlingame and Council Grove, then swung east of present-day towns McPherson and Lyons. West of Lyons the trail nearly followed the route of present-day Highway 56 to Ellinwood, Kansas, where it encountered the Arkansas River. Almost all Trail traffic was on the north side of the Arkansas River from where you see Great Bend on a current map to present-day Dodge City. The Mountain Route was not the original Trail, being developed after 1845.
West of present-day Garden City, in southwestern Kansas, the trail has a complex network of branches. One of the branches continued to follow the Arkansas upstream in southeastern Colorado to the present-day town of La Junta. There the trail continued south into New Mexico to Fort Union.
This was the original route until 1845-1846; for two decades it WAS the Santa Fe Trail. This main branch cut southwest to the valley of the Cimarron River near present-day towns of Ulysses and Elkhart then continued toward present-day Boise City, Oklahoma and Clayton, New Mexico, joining up with different route of the trail near Fort Union. From there, the reunited branches continued southward to Santa Fe. Part of this route has been designated a National Scenic Byway.
Did you know that there were many dangers along the Trail? Besides bad weather, broken wagons, illness, and running out of provisions, there were Indian raids and other things that travelers had to worry about.
Henry Standage, a private in the Mormon Battalion trudging along the Cimarron Route of the Santa Fe Trail in 1846 wrote about this part of the country, "We traveled this day across one of the most dreary deserts that ever man saw, suffering much from the intense heat of  the sun and for want of water. . ."
A dramatization of life on the route was made into a motion picture in 1940, starring Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, Raymond Massey and Ronald Reagan.
Many miles of the Trail ran over flat prairie land, with no guide posts or landmarks for miles. The energy from the sun would create bent light rays called a mirage, often leading travelers astray! Young Kids - click here for a coloring page all about a Compass Rose to keep trail travelers going in the right direction.
One thing that really helped was that Military Forts sprang up nearby and soldiers from these forts would protect travelers on the Trails. Older Kids - click here to find out about the Forts Along the Trail.
Older Kids, you might be a budding author, just waiting to have an audience. Click here for some Santa Fe Trail Writing Themes. If you write one of these up, please email them to us and if we really like them, we will post them in the Kids Area for others to read. Parents - please note that your child's initials will be the only indication of their identity on any posted writings, due to online child privacy protection.
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