The Gila Trail
The Gila Trail is probably the oldest major trail of the United States. It is estimated to be at least 15,000 years old. Commonly, as for most trails, the Gila follows rivers. The trail follows from Mexico to Zuni, New Mexico. The first ones to explore the Gila, excluding Native Americans, was a slave named Esteban. Esteban was granted freedom from Charles V of Spain if he completely mapped the Gila Trail. Once Esteban reached the town of Zuni, the native there thought he was a god and was immortal. These natives tested his immortality by shooting arrows at him, which proved him mortal. Two centuries later, Father Eusibio Francisco Kino established missions along the trail which brought many people using the trail. The missions guaranteed a safe trip on the trail. During the Gold Rush, Forty-Niners used the Gila Trail massively to get to California.
Read more about this topic: Medicine Trails
Famous quotes containing the word trail:
“These, and such as these, must be our antiquities, for lack of human vestiges. The monuments of heroes and the temples of the gods which may once have stood on the banks of this river are now, at any rate, returned to dust and primitive soil. The murmur of unchronicled nations has died away along these shores, and once more Lowell and Manchester are on the trail of the Indian.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)