Santa Fe Trail

The same text stands at a Mora County rest area a hundred miles south, where its here misleads; at Cimarron the Mountain Branch really is on its way to Raton Pass. The change the panel dates to the 1840s had an army in it: Stephen Watts Kearny took the Army of the West over the pass in 1846 rather than across the drier Cimarron Route. The road stayed rough until Richens Lacy Wootton, Uncle Dick, cut a toll road over the pass in the mid-1860s and charged wagons, stages and stock to use it.

What the plaque says

Official Scenic Historic Marker Santa Fe Trail The difficulty of bringing cara- vans over rocky and mountainous Raton Pass kept most wagon traf- fic on the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail until the 1840's. Afterwards, the Mountain Branch, which here approaches Raton Pass, became more popular with traders, immigrants, gold- seekers, and government supply trains. Official Scenic Historic Marker Santa Fe Trail Opened by William Becknell in 1821, the Santa Fe Trail became the major trade route to Santa Fe from Missouri River towns. The two main branches, the Cimarron Cutoff and the Mountain Branch, joined at Watrous. Travel over the Trail ceased with the coming of the railroad in 1879.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• St. James Hotel — steps away
  Henri Lambert's 1872 inn and saloon on the Santa Fe Trail at Cimarron, a stage for the Colfax County War, where the old saloon ceiling still shows 22 bullet holes.

More markers nearby

• Black Jack's Hideout / Colfax County War — steps away
• Cimarron Canyon — 4.2 mi
• Eagle Nest Lake State Park — 18 mi
• Elizabethtown — 20 mi