On The Santa Fe Trail

In 1852, seven-year-old Marion Sloan travels with her mother and older brother in a wagon train along the Santa Fe Trail, experiencing both hardship and wonder.

Historic pioneer trails serve as some of the most fascinating links to our nation's past and retracing them can be an exhilarating and educational experience. Following the Santa Fe Trail is aimed at assisting modern travelers to enlarge their understanding of the trail and increase the enjoyment that comes from following in the wagon tracks of pioneers. Originating in Franklin, Missouri, the Santa Fe Trail was the first and most exotic of America's great trans-Mississippi pathways to the west. Although the era of the trail ceased, its glory-days are still part of the collective imagination of America. Complete with directions, maps, anecdotes, and historical information, Following the Santa Fe Trail takes the traveler on an authentic historic journey. Modern paved highways now parallel much of the old wagon route and with this guide a modern adventurer can retrace large sections of the trail. Since Following the Santa Fe Trail first appeared in 1984, the trail was designated a National Historic Trail under the National Park Service and public interest has mushroomed. This completely revised third edition now updates all directions and clarifies the changes that have taken place in the last 15 years.

Fresh and well-documented overview of the trail, emphasizing its importance as an international trade route. New photos by George H. H. Huey and Joyce A. Dale, plus historical photos and illustrations, many never before published.

The Santa Fe Trail’s role as the major western trade route in the early to mid-nineteenth century made it a critical part of America’s Westward expansion and the stories of its heyday include some of the greatest adventures in the history of the Old West. Drawn from first-hand accounts of early entrepreneurs and emigrants who braved the Santa Fe Trail between 1820 and 1880, this history reveals the lure of the West and puts its importance to American history in context. On the Santa Fe Trail paints a portrait of the land before the wagon tracks were carved in its surface and recounts the hardships, dangers, and adventures faced by the hardy souls who went West to make their fortunes.

Compared to such famous frontier paths as Lewis and Clark's route and the Oregon Trail, most people know little about the seminal trade route we call the Santa Fe Trail, yet this rough wagon road endured longer than any other American trail west of the Mississippi River. From 1821 to 1880, bold and daring men loaded their wagons with trade goods and set out from Missouri to Santa Fe, in the newly independent nation of Mexico. These merchants, teamsters, and travelers exchanged not only material goods, but also ideas and customs, forever altering the cultural and political landscape for American, Mexican, and Indian peoples along the route. Taking the reader on an imaginative tour from end to end, author Ronald Dulle often stops to explore how wagon trains are organized or what a campsite looks like; to notice the strange food, clothing, and habits of the day; or to imagine the feeling of a rainy day in the saddle. With dozens of stunning color photographs and a fascinating narrative, Dulle helps readers envision the frontier experience and appreciate the myriad material and cultural changes the Santa Fe Trail brought to our growing nation.

A classic on all the trials and tribulations of the Santa Fé Trail, the Indian deprevations, the Mexican problems,the Fontier Military, the Fur Trappers, Fur Trade, and Mountain Men, Kit Carson, Uncle Dick Wooten, Buffalo Bill Cody, the Bents, Jim Beckwourth.

The lively history of this great trade artery is once more available.

Now in its sixth printing, this Santa Fe Trail activity book features a new cover and several updates. And, it still includes 88 pages of Santa Fe Trail articles and stories, biographies of trail travelers, coloring pages, reproducible activities and project ideas. Articles cover the trail's history, routes, cargo, jobs on a wagon train, draft animals, wagon types and conflicts with Indians.Topics are discussed in one or more pages of easy-to-read text, followed by maps, timelines, vocabulary, word puzzles, writing, sequencing, graphs, charts/tables, outlines, diagrams, categorizing, math plus a reading list, places to visit, and answer keys.

An extraordinary saga of the trail-blazing cowboys who made their fortune driving cattle from Texas to the Great Frontier. They left Missouri and were headed to Santa Fe. Standing in their way was a parched desert, a land of outlaws and enemies-and one man's dangerous past. He was a wealthy englishman with two beautiful daughters. They were five dusty texans and a gambling man. And they were all on the ride of their lives. The only riches Texans had left after the Civil War were five million maverick longhorns and the brains, brawn and boldness to drive them north to where the money was. Now, Ralph Compton brings this violent and magnificent time to life in an extraordinary epic series based on the history-making trail drives. The Santa Fe Trail Gavin McCord and his brawling cowboys came to Missouri with a problem: 3,500 longhorns and not one buyer. That's where Gladstone Pitkin came in. A man with money and a dream of ranching in New Mexico, Pitkin bought McCord's cattle and hired his Texans for a trail drive from Independence to Santa Fe. But with an ill-fated gambler on the drive, the courageous, hardened riders weren't just a thousand brutal miles from Santa Fe-they were heading into a death trap.