Traveling The Santa Fe Trail

Young learners will be introduced to an important stage in history when they read Traveling The Santa Fe Trail. This book is filled with photographs, interesting facts, discussion questions, and more, to effectively engage young learners in such a significant re-telling of events. Each 48-page title in The History Of America Collection delves into complex narratives in history. Concise, but comprehensive, these titles are very approachable for transitioning readers and learners beginning to recognize detail orientation and how to analyze text. Each book in this series features photographs, timelines, discussion questions, and more, to fully engage transitioning readers. The History Of America Collection engages students in major historical events with fascinating facts, photographs, and more. Readers are able to gauge their own understanding with before-reading questions that help build background knowledge and end-of-book comprehension and extension activities.

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.

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.

With its new status as a National Historic Trail, more and more people are traveling the Santa Fe Trail between Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Franklin, Missouri, seeking out scenic and historic riches. End to end trail descriptions make this guide useful not only for the long distance bicycle tourist but also for those with limited time, those traveling by automobile with their bicycles, and those visiting only one or two locations along the trail. Special features include the following: trail history and historical sites, bicycle and accessory selection, training and safety tips, trail photographs, then and now, touring information and ride schedules, maps and charts -- Back cover.

Indispensable readers guide and traveling companion scrupulously revised and updated from the 1984 edition. From Franklin, Mo., to Santa Fe, N.M., via both the Cimarron Cut-off and the Mountain Branch, Simmons concisely identifies and notes the history of routes, towns, structures, wayside markers, landmarks, and sidetrips, so the traveler can explore the Trail from any point. Helpful introductory and appended background information.

The story of a cottonwood tree growing on the Great Plains, and its contributions to the history of the Southwest.

In June 1846 Susan Shelby Magoffin, eighteen years old and a bride of less than eight months, set out with her husband, a veteran Santa Fe trader, on a trek from Independence, Missouri, through New Mexico and south to Chihuahua. Her travel journal was written at a crucial time, when the Mexican War was beginning and New Mexico was occupied by Stephen Watts Kearny and the Army of the West. Her journal describes the excitement, routine, and dangers of a successful merchant's wife. On the trail for fifteen months, moving from house to house and town to town, she became adept in Spanish and the lingo of traders, and wrote down in detail the customs and appearances of places she went. She gave birth to her first child during the journey and admitted, "This thing of marrying is not what it is cracked up to be." Valuable as a social and historical record of her encounters—she met Zachary Taylor and was agreeably disappointed to find him disheveled but kindly—her journal is equally important as a chronicle of her growing intelligence, experience, and strength, her lost illusions and her coming to terms with herself.