That Broad and Beckoning Highway: The Santa Fe Trail and the Rush for Gold in California and Colorado

As mentioned in this study, emigrants to Colorado in 1859 experienced a Santa Fe Trail markedly different than that of the emigrants bound for California in 1849. Kansas was created by the U. S. Congress as a distinct governmental unit – a U. S. territory – in 1854 and became a state in 1861. By 1860 the eastern one-third of the state was well-settled, the region was divided into functioning counties, and the public land surveys extended well into central Kansas. What had once been trading outposts along the trail from Kansas City to Council Grove and even farther west had grown into nascent communities. Two reminiscences of old-time trail travelers cited above describe features of this transition – James R. Mead’s “Trails in Southern Kansas,” which mentions changes in the town of Burlingame, and Thomas E. Burns’ “The Town of Wilmington on the Santa Fe Trail.” But, this aspect of the history and heritage of the Santa Fe Trail has not been investigated or interpreted in depth. Various questions occur: What became of the old trail – was it abandoned, did it become a city street, a market road between one town and another, or, later, a state or federal highway? How did the residents of the new communities along the old trail or the farmers in their fields regard the lingering vestiges of the trail? When did a concern to preserve the heritage of the trail arise in the region – as with the marking of the trail by the Daughters of the American Revolution beginning in the early 1900s? What motivated these folks to preserve the trail? Historians of the Santa Fe Trail need to answer these and related questions both because this transformation is part of the story of the trail and also because it illuminates the progress from reality to memory to myth in the trail’s national significance and “place” in American culture.

Nearly every 1859 Colorado-bound emigrant who passed by mentioned “Allison’s Ranch” on Walnut Creek. Reading between the lines in their diaries, journals and letters, there is a sense of relief in their remarks – relief that even this far out on the prairies there was “civilized” habitation, crude though it might be; relief that they could replenish basic supplies; and relief that the “ranche” could serve as a touchstone – the Rockies were within striking distance but if they had to turn back, Allison’s Ranch would be there. Dr. David Clapsaddle, in the pages of the Santa Fe Trail Association’s magazine Wagon Tracks, as discussed above and indicated in the bibliography to this study, has done extensive research on the individual “ranches.” But, their story – and there were others, as at Cottonwood Creek, Diamond Spring and the Little Arkansas – needs to be integrated in the general history of the trail in the 1850s and 1860s, and they need to be recognized through increased interpretation and signage on the ground.

As previously mentioned several times in this section of this study, perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the role of the Santa Fe Trail in the Colorado gold rush story is that of the development of freighting, merchant moguls and trading empires. This consideration encompasses the whole expanse of the trail, from Missouri businesses to the advance of agriculture in New Mexico to the blazing of “extensions” of the Santa Fe and Cherokee trails into the southern interior of Colorado, via Pueblo and Cañon City. Supplies, provisions and mining machinery flowed from Missouri west while flour, onions and “Taos Lightening” rolled in from New Mexico – all along sections of the old trail. Economic history never seems glamorous – it is difficult to compete with the snap of bullwhips or cries of “All’s set, All’s set,” that echo along the trail. However, there is romance, drama, and a story in the careers of trail freighters and entrepreneurs in the 1850s and 1860s – men such as Alexander Majors, Ceran St. Vrain or Joseph B. Doyle. Their business activities merit study – not only as part of the heritage of the Santa Fe Trail, but also to illuminate the contribution of the trail and its people to the economy and overall growth of the state of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain West. This is a fertile field for the next generation of Santa Fe Trail “buffs,” aficionados and scholars.

During the years of the 1859 gold rush, the Santa Fe Trail was regarded as the easiest, though longest route to take to the Colorado mines. It also served as the link for subsidiary routes, such as the Cherokee Trail, the road from Bent’s Old Fort to Pueblo, Colorado, and extensions into central Colorado via Ute Pass or routes along the Arkansas River. The Santa Fe Trail had a prominent role in the initial opening of the Colorado gold regions, in an emigrant’s choice of routes to the gold fields from the east, with regard to the men and material that subsequently moved over these routes and in the trade between Missouri River towns and new settlements such as Denver, Colorado City [precursor to Colorado Springs], Cañon City and the South Park region of the upper Arkansas and South Platte rivers. This bibliography particularly reflects these elements in the history and heritage of the trail in the 1859 Colorado gold rush.

The following items are divided into four sections: newspapers, primary sources, 1859 guidebooks and secondary sources. The primary sources are extensively annotated to highlight their importance to the story of the Santa Fe Trail in the Colorado gold rush. Some secondary sources are similarly annotated; those not annotated are not central to the interpretation of the history and heritage of the trail in the late 1850s and 1860s with respect to the gold rush but provide pertinent information. All spellings, grammar, capitalizations, etc. in quotations in the following annotations are not corrected or identified, viz. [sic], but are as they appear in the original.

Newspapers Cited or Referenced

Canon City Times Cañon City, CO

Daily Rocky Mountain News Denver, CO

Journal of Commerce Kansas City, MO

Lawrence Republican Lawrence, KS

Leavenworth Times Leavenworth, KS

Missouri Republican St. Louis, MO

New York Herald Tribune New York City, NY

Rocky Mountain Weekly News Denver, CO

Primary Sources

Bieber, Ralph P., ed. “Diary of a Journey to the Pike’s Peak Gold Mines in 1859.” Mississippi

George M. Willing took the Santa Fe Trail to Pueblo, and then the Cherokee Trail to Denver and the mines. He left western Missouri sometime in the middle of April, 1859. His diary opens “On the Arkansas, May 25^th,” and closes June 21^st, when he notes, “Have been to the mountains. . . .” (362, 377) His trip to the mines evidently was not a pleasant experience. Of the journey west along the Arkansas, he writes, “Still creeping up the left bank of this interminable, abominable river, in the direction of Fort Bent, which seems to recede as we advance.” Also, “It seems we are never to come up to that Fort, nor yet in sight of the Mountains.” (363, 364)

Burns, Thomas F. “The Town of Wilmington and the Santa Fe Trail.” Kansas Historical

Collections 11 (1909-1910): 597-599. Accessed online November 16, 2012 at http://www.wabaunsee.org/index.php/a-earlyhist-2/ex-pp?showall=&start=2.

Burns provides a snapshot of Wilmington, Kansas, where he settled in 1859. Wilmington was “then a stage station on the Santa Fe trail,” as Burns describes it. He continues, “The village or station of Wilmington in 1859 consisted of one two-story house of some half a dozen rooms (used as a hotel), a blacksmith shop, a wagon maker’s shop and several dwelling houses, all build of concrete.” (598) This is the scene, then, that 1859 gold seekers on the Santa Fe Trail would have encountered.

Carvalho, Solomon Nunes. Incidents of travel and adventure in the Far West: with Col.

Frémont's last expedition across the Rocky Mountains ; including three months' residence in Utah, and a perilous trip across the great American desert to the Pacific. New York: Derby & Jackson, 1860. Accessed online June 25, 2012 at http://archive.org/details/incidentsoftrave00carviala.

Solomon Nunes Carvalho was a portrait painter in New York City who, in the 1840s or early 1850s, learned the new daguerreotype filming process, realizing that photography might undermine his portraiture business. He was hired as a photographer by John Charles Frémont to accompany his ill-fated Fourth Expedition of 1848-1849. This expedition moved west from Westport, on the Missouri River, to Fort Riley, up the Solomon Fork of the Smoky Hill, and then southwest to the Arkansas River and the Santa Fe Trail. Frémont’s party followed the Arkansas via the Bent’s Old Fort to Pueblo, Colorado, and thence attempted to cross the Rockies. Carvalho chronicles the usual incidents of trail travel, including buffalo hunts and encounters with Native peoples. Though his book was published in 1860, there is no evidence of its use by a Colorado gold seeker, but it does provide a glimpse of the Santa Fe Trail just a few years before the 1859 gold rush. Note: This item is not cited in the text of this study.

Conard, Howard Louis. “Uncle Dick Wootton, The Pioneer Frontiersman of the Rocky

Mountain Region. Chicago: W. E. Dibble & Co, 1890. Available in later editions. Can be read online at http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=wu.89066075789#page/9/mode/1up, but only with requisite subscription service.

Richens Lacy Wootton is one of the most well-known figures in the history of the fur and Indian trade in the Southwest and is central to the economic development of southeastern Colorado. It is always best to corroborate “Uncle Dick’s” memories with other sources, though his basic chronology is sound.

Conner, Daniel Ellis. A Confederate in the Colorado Gold Fields. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970. Edited by Donald J. Berthrong and Odessa Davenport.

This is one of the better and more accessible accounts of an emigrant journey to Colorado in 1859 along the Santa Fe Trail. Conner and his party left the Weston, Missouri/Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, area in early April, 1859. From that point on, Conner is vague on dates but long on detail. He comments at greater length than almost any other emigrant on interaction with the Plains Indians, from central Kansas into southeastern Colorado. He also presents a full picture of the territory between Bent’s New Fort [Fort Wise/Fort Lyon] and Pueblo. His party took the Cherokee Trail north to Denver and the mines. Conner wrote this narrative after the Civil War, using notes taken during his trip to Colorado.

Elder, Jane Lenz and David J. Weber, eds. Trading in Santa Fe: John M. Kingsbury’s Correspondence with James Josiah Webb, 1853-1861. Dallas: Southern

Methodist University Press, DeGolyer Library, 1996.

John M. Kingsbury was the junior partner in the prominent Santa Fe Trading firm of Webb and Kingsbury. As such, he represented the business in Santa Fe and wrote numerous letters from there to his partner, James Josiah Webb, who spent much of his time “back east.” Although there is not a lot of information in these letters on the receipt or impact of the news of gold discoveries in Colorado in 1858 and 1859, Kingsbury does offer an “on the scene” glimpse of the situation, including the beginning of trade between New Mexico and the Colorado mining communities. On November 20, 1858, he writes, “We have favorable reports from Pikes Peak. There is no question about there being plenty of gold there. For the best information I can get it is from 3[00] or to 350 miles from here. However, it has created no excitement here, and I think very few will go from here unless it attracts a few of the Gamblers which we shall be glad to get shed of. Col. [Ceran] St. Vrain is about starting a train loaded principally with Flour under charge of St. James.” (127)

“The Great West; the Commerce of the Great Plains of North America. The Past and Present

Condition of the Great Overland Traffic with New Mexico, the Pike’s Peak Gold Regions and Utah.” The New York Herald, November 27, 1860. Available online from various subscription-only full-text newspaper sites.

In the early 1860s many newspapers around the United States printed, or reprinted, assessments of the Colorado gold rush and the political, social and economic circumstances in the West and Southwest at the time. This long article from the New York Herald is one of the best, on several levels. Although it considers all the routes to the mines, it provides a long history of the Santa Fe Trail and trade and emphasizes the dominant role of Kansas City in the Southwestern trade. There is a detailed presentation of a “Statement Showing the Extent of the Overland Transportation Business of Various Missouri river Towns to New Mexico, the Pike’s Peak Gold Regions, Utah and Points on the Plains,” c. 1860, including numbers of men, mules, oxen, wagons and weight of freight carried by various freighting firms. Nationalist sentiments also are expressed, such as in the opening paragraph: “Of all modern conquerors, Anglo-American civilization is one of the most peaceable and successful. Under the accelerating influence of that perhaps most powerful of Anglo-American impulses – love of gain – its steady march progresses from East to West in ever quickening strides.”

Greeley, Horace. “The Kansas Gold Mines,” Weekly Rocky Mountain News, 1:6 (June 11, 1859), 5. Available online through the Colorado Historical Society’s “Colorado’s Historical Newspapers,” at http://www.historycolorado.org/researchers/online-research. Accessed August 27, 2012.

This “manifesto” reporting on the state of affairs in the Colorado gold fields in the spring of 1859 is one of the most famous and influential reports of the day. Although it is signed by Horace Greeley, A. D. Richardson, and Henry Villard, it was published in the Weekly Rocky Mountain News as “Greeley’s Report.” It is not central to understanding the role of the Santa Fe Trail in the Colorado rush, but it should not be overlooked. Of the journey across the plains, regardless of what route was taken, they wrote, “Part of this distance is a desert, yielding grass, wood, and water only at intervals of several miles, and then very scantily. To attempt to cross this desert on foot is madness – suicide – murder.” This report has been widely reprinted. It is perhaps most readily accessible in print in LeRoy R. Hafen, Colorado Gold Rush: Contemporary Letters and Reports, 1858-1859. Note: This item is not cited in the text of this study.

Hafen, LeRoy R. Colorado Gold Rush: Contemporary Letters and Reports, 1858-1859. Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1941. Reissued by the Porcupine Press, Philadelphia, 1974.

This volume reprints hundreds of letters, articles, “reports from correspondents,” etc., found in dozens of newspapers from 1858 and 1859 concerning the rush to Colorado and developments in the mining regions. There is a wealth of material for evaluating the role of the Santa Fe Trail as a route to the mines. Especially important are items culled from the Kansas City Journal of Commerce. This entire compilation is indispensable.

Hafen, LeRoy R. Reports from Colorado. The Wildman Letters, 1859-1865, with other related letters and newspaper reports, 1859. Glendale, CA: The Arthur H. Clark Company, 1961.

This volume of Hafen’s primary material relating to the Colorado gold rush is less important for Santa Fe Trail material than his other book-length publications. Thomas Wildman and his party, for instance, in Hafen’s words, “is traveling the route through central Kansas,” though it is not clear whether or not this is the Smoky Hill Trail. Various extracts from the Kansas City Journal of Commerce and other newspapers have some value, particularly concerning freighting supplies from Missouri River towns to Colorado via the Santa Fe Trail.

Hafen, LeRoy R. To the Pike’s Peak Gold Fields, 1859. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark, 1942. Reprinted, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004.

In this volume Hafen edits two diaries of interest for the role of the Santa Fe Trail in the 1859 Colorado gold rush, that of Charles C. Post (“The Arkansas River Route”) and of A. M. Gass (“From Texas to Pike’s Peak”). Charles Post left Decatur, Illinois, where he practiced law, on May 3, 1859 and arrived at the “head of Cherry Creek” on June 26^th. His diary is of interest given his observations on the mundane aspects of trail travel – broken axles, washing clothes in the Arkansas, fixing meals, and reading Shakespeare’s As You Like It along the way! Gass’s journey is an unusual one. He leaves Bonham, Texas, south of the Red River, on April 11, 1859, travels north to strike the Fort Smith-Santa Fe Road at Edwards’ Trading Post on the Canadian River [Oklahoma], follows the Canadian to the region of Antelope Hills [today near the Texas-Oklahoma border], then heads due north across the Oklahoma Panhandle to the Arkansas River, which he reaches near the Cimarron Crossing. He follows the Arkansas, and hence the Santa Fe Trail, to Bent’s New Fort, then on to Fountain City [Pueblo], Colorado, and then heads north on the Cherokee Trail to the mines. When he gets to the Arkansas he exclaims, “Wagons – wagons – Pike’s Peak wagons. Well! there were a few of them – I presume three hundred ox-wagons in sight.” (223)

Hafen, LeRoy R. “The Voorhees Diary of the Lawrence Party’s Trip to Pike’s Peak, 1858.” Colorado Magazine 12 (March 1935): 42-54.

Augustus Voorhees was a member of the Lawrence Party, the second group of gold seekers to venture west to Colorado in 1858. It was two weeks behind the Russell Party. Both are famous in the history of the Colorado gold rush. Both the Russell and Lawrence parties followed the Santa Fe Trail. Besides offering a picture of the trail and gold seekers in 1858, Hafen’s notes for the diary, especially with reference to geographic locations, are very valuable. As an addendum, Hafen reprints a “log” of the route and distances published by William B. Parsons, one of the members of the Lawrence Party, in his guidebook The New Gold Mines of Western Kansas, which he issued upon his return from Colorado in December 1858.

Kellogg, David. “Across The Plains in 1858.” The Trail 5:7 (December 1912): 5-10, and 5:8 (January 1913): 5-12. Available online through a subscriber-only service at http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000638720. Accessed August 27, 2012 at Colorado College, Colorado Springs, Colorado.

This account is one of the most fascinating accounts of the “Pike’s Peak or Bust” syndrome. Kellogg and his party leave Kansas City on September 17, 1858, for Colorado via the Santa Fe Trail. His depiction of the trail is detailed – and laconic: “September 30^th. Drove to Cow Creek and camped. Caught some fish in this stream. . . . We shoot much at prairie dogs but none of the party has yet been able to get one. At the flash of the rifle they drop into their holes and disappear.” (5:7, 6) He spends the winter of 1858-1859 prospecting, undergoing great hardship. On March 13^th he records, “Drove to Auraria and camped. Dick Wooten has opened up a store here with goods brought from New Mexico.” (5:8, 10) In the spring he and several companions head back to Missouri via the Platte River Road – and pretend that they are coming from Salt Lake City to avoid the ire of emigrants headed west to the Colorado mines who are beginning to have doubts about the wealth of gold there. It is an interesting twist to the Colorado gold rush story.

Larimer, William. The Reminiscences of General William Larimer and of his son William H. H. Larimer, Two of the Founders of Denver City. Pittsburg: William Larimer Mellon, 1918. Accessed online November 19, 2012 at http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=njp.32101074863737#page/1/mode/1up.

Lindsey, David, ed. “The Journal of an 1859 Pike’s Peak Gold Seeker,” Kansas Historical Quarterly 22 (Winter 1956), 321-341. Accessed online August 27, 2012 at http://www.kshs.org/p/kansas-historical-quarterly/13286.

This is the diary of William Salisbury, who left Cleveland, Ohio, for the Colorado mines on April 4, 1859. He and his party pass through Westport, Missouri, on April 30^th and camp five miles beyond, headed west on the Santa Fe Trail. He notes the communities of Burlingame and Wilmington and says of Running Turkey Creek, “There is no timber here and poore water There is wone house here maid of small logs and turf and a grocery in a wagon . . . The nearest timber is within 8 miles.” (328) He offers many insights into daily life traveling along the trail and in camp, such as, on Sunday, June 5^th: “It was decided last night to remain here [22 miles west of Bent’s Old Fort] today. I have been working and mending. Been down to the River to swim Have been reading some. It has been a beautiful day.” (331) His party arrives at Fountain City [Pueblo] on June 9^th and turns north on the Cherokee Trail.

Majors, Alexander. Seventy Years on the Frontier. Columbus, OH: Long’s College Book Company, 1950. First published in 1893. Accessed online August 27, 2012 at http://archive.org/details/yearsonseventyfr00majorich.

It is difficult to assess Alexander Majors’ Seventy Years on the Frontier. Majors was involved in just about every important aspect of transportation though the years to New Mexico, Colorado, and other points west. He was, of course, the “Majors” of the famous firm of “Russell, Majors and Waddell,” which was involved in freighting, stagecoach lines and, most notably, the Pony Express. These memoirs have to be “mined” for information on the Santa Fe Trail and the Colorado gold rush, but there are chapters entitled, “The Gold Fever,” “The Denver of Early Days,” and “Kansas City before the War,” which are informative.

McCain, G. S. “A Trip from Atchison, Kansas, to Laurette, Colorado, Diary of G. S. McCain.” Colorado Magazine 27 (April 1950): 95-102.

The value of this diary is two-fold. First, though it is undated, it most likely is from 1864 or 1865, making it a relatively rare account of Santa Fe Trail emigrant travel. Second, McCain’s party initially journeys via Fort Riley and the Smoky Hill Trail but at Ellsworth, Kansas, it turns south and strike out for the Santa Fe Trail, joining it at Cow Creek. As they trek west, McCain mentions the various military posts on the trail. He and his party head for the Colorado mines through “Canion City.” McCain has a sense of humor. The very first entry is for September 10^th: “Yoked up wild cattle. Had lots of fun. One got so cross we had to shoot him.” (95)