Santa Fe Trail - Lakin, KS
N 37° 58.460 W 101° 11.070
14S E 308128 N 4205218
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Independence, MO with Santa Fe, NM. #13193
Waymark Code: WMRWK2
Location: Kansas, United States
Date Posted: 08/13/2016
Views: 4
The route skirted the northern edge and crossed the north-western corner of Comancheria, the territory of the Comanches, who demanded compensation for granting passage to the trail, and represented another market for American traders. Comanche raiding farther south in Mexico isolated New Mexico, making it more dependent on the American trade, and provided the Comanches with a steady supply of horses for sale. By the 1840s trail traffic along the Arkansas Valley was so heavy that bison herds could not reach important seasonal grazing land, contributing to their collapse which in turn hastened the decline of Comanche power in the region.
The Trail was used as the 1846 U.S. invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican–American War.
After the U.S. acquisition of the Southwest ending the Mexican–American War, 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 the entire length of Kansas, the southeast corner of Colorado and northern New Mexico has been designated as the Santa Fe Trail National Scenic Byway.
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