The Santa Fe Trail
The buffalo migration impacted the smooth and mild Santa Fe Trail. On September 1, 1821, Captain William Becknell left Arrow Rock, Missouri to explore the southwest. Most people doubted that he would find the trail to Santa Fe including his arrival back to Arrow Rock. He came back four months later with a map of the trail. Mapping the trail would have not been successful without the guidance of migrating buffalo. These buffaloes led him to water sources; a constant guarantee of survival in the desert. Although this trail was easy to follow, it was between the United States and French territories. The area was called ‘neutral zone’ and was unprotected since no one claimed it. Hence, travelers on the trail encountered many robberies. By 1880 a railroad, now referred as the Santa Fe Railroad, was built on the trail which increased trade between Missouri and the Western United States.
Read more about this topic: Medicine Trails
Famous quotes containing the words santa and/or trail:
“On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe.”
—Johnny Mercer (1909–1976)
“Most of us don’t have mothers who blazed a trail for us—at least, not all the way. Coming of age before or during the inception of the women’s movement, whether as working parents or homemakers, whether married or divorced, our mothers faced conundrums—what should they be? how should they act?—that became our uncertainties.”
—Anne Roiphe (20th century)