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The Old Spanish Trail witnessed a brief but furious
heyday between 1830 and 1848 as a trade route linking Santa Fe, New
Mexico and Los Angeles, California. During that period,
Mexican and American traders took woolen goods west over the trail
by mule train, and returned eastward with California mules and
horses for the New Mexico and Missouri markets.
The Trail
left Santa Fe and split into two routes. The South or Main
Branch headed northwest past Colorado's San Juan mountains to near
Green River, Utah. The North Branch proceeded due north into
Colorado's San Luis Valley and crossed west over Cochetopa Pass to
follow the Gunnison and Colorado rivers to meet the Southern Branch
near Green River.
From central Utah the Trail trended
southwest to an area now shared by Utah, Nevada and Arizona.
It crossed southern Nevada and passed through the Mojave Desert to
San Gabriel Mission and Los Angeles.
The Trail originated in
ancient, native American Indian trade routes. Two of these
routes ran north-south along the eastern and western margins of the
upper Rio Grande Valley, between the adobe pueblos of present-day
New Mexico and Colorado's San Luis Valley. Perhaps the oldest,
in use for nearly 1,000 years, later became the West Fork of the
North Branch.
Between 1598 and 1830, Spanish (1598-1821) and
later Mexican (1821-1830), and American (1821-1830) traders
connected these native trade routes to complete the Old Spanish
Trail.
Well-documented Spanish expeditions that led from
Santa Fe to central Utah, along the eastern half of the Trail,
include Juan Maria Antonio de Rivera in 1765, the
Dominquez-Escalante party of 1776, Manuel Mestas in 1805, and the
Arze-Garcia party of 1813. But Spanish traffic was fairly
constant between 1765 and 1821 to trade with the Ute, including for
slaves.
In the 1820s, fur-trapping parties pushed west from
New Mexico, following the Gila and Colorado rivers south of the
Trail, while others used the Spanish route northwest from Santa Fe
to trap the Green River in eastern Utah. These men
included: Antoine Robidoux (who built forts on the North
Branch), Ewing Young, Etienne Provost, William Wolfskill, George
Yount, Jose Martin, Jedediah Smith, Kit Carson, and Ceran St.
Vrain.
Mexican trader Antonio Armijo made the first
commercial, round-trip journey along a southern variant of the route
in 1829-1830. William Wolfskill and George Yount's commercial
pack train of 1830-1831 inaugurated consistent use of the entire
route from 1830-1848.
During the Mexican War, 1846-1848, the
Americans' Army of the West conquered New Mexico, then blazed a new,
southern variant of the route to California, hastening the end of
the Old Spanish Trail. Several famous journeys were made along
the Trail, from west-to-east, including one by Kit Carson and
Lieutenant George D. Brewerton in 1848.
After the Mexican
War, wagon roads on competing routes largely ended use of the
Trail.
In the 1850s and 1860s, portions of the Trail's
eastern end were mapped by U.S. government expeditions, while the
western portion of the trail witnessed Mormons heading to
California. U.S. government expeditions included Capt.
John W. Gunnison in 1853, and Lieutenant E.F. Beale in
1853.
By then commercial traffic had died out, leaving wagon
ruts visible where once only mules trod.
Modern historical
scholarship on the Old Spanish Trail began in the 1920s, and
resulted in LeRoy and Ann Hafen's Old Spanish Trail
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1954; reprinted
1993). Trail scholarship resumed in the 1970s, 1980s, and
1990s.
In May, 1994, Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell,
D-Colorado, introduced legislation in the U.S. Senate directing the
National Park Service to study the Trail for possible inclusion in
the National Historic Trails system. In June, 1994, Rep. Scott
McInnis, R-Colorado, introduced similar legislation in the House of
Representatives.
For
further information you can contact The Old
Spanish Trail Association.
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