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Santa Fe Trail and Oregon trail
107
Oregon Trail
in 1978
The Oregon Trail is a 2,200-mile historic east-west large wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Idaho and Oregon.
From the early to mid-1830s (and particularly through the epoch years, 1846–1869) the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and businessmen and their families. The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Bozeman Trail (from 1863), and Mormon Trail (from 1847) before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer. Today, modern highways such as Interstate 80 follow the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to serve those using the Oregon Trail.
The Oregon Trail was laid by fur trappers and traders from about 1811 to 1840 and was only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared further and further west, eventually reaching all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. What came to be called the Oregon Trail was complete, even as improved roads, "cutouts", ferries and bridges made the trip faster and safer almost every year.
The Trail was used as the 1846 U.S. invasion route of New Mexico during the Mexican–American War.
The route crossed Comancheria, the territory of the Comanches, who demanded compensation for granting passage to the trail.
Americans routinely assaulted the Comanches along the trail, finding it unacceptable that they had to pay a fee for passage to Santa Fe
Santa Fe
The Santa Fe Trail was a 19th-century transportation route through central North America that connected Franklin, Missouri with Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Santa Fe was near the end of the El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro which led south to Mexico
In 1821 , it served as a vital commercial and military highway until the introduction of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880.