The Santa Fe Trail

Cimarron's hardest fight came a decade after its founding. In the 1887 election for the Gray County seat, millionaire Asa T. Soule wanted Ingalls and promised Montezuma a railroad, handing its residents checks of $100 to $500, but Cimarron won. The Kansas Supreme Court, validating the returns, ordered the county records moved to Ingalls, and in 1889 armed men from Ingalls came to Cimarron for the rest of them; in the gunfight a bystander was killed. The governor sent militia, and the raiders were tried for murder and acquitted. Cimarron was declared the county seat in 1896.

What the plaque says

The Santa Fe Trail Cimarron, settled in 1878, got its name as the starting point at one time of the shorter Cimarron or dry route to Santa Fe. Here the Santa Fe Trail divided, one branch heading directly southwest, the other (present US 50) following the Arkansas river to Bent's Fort (near La Junta, Colo.), then south over Raton Pass. William Becknell first traveled the dry route with a pack- train via the Cimarron river in 1822, carrying trade goods for Mexico, newly freed from Spain. By 1824, wagons creaked along with loads of calico, guns, tools and shoes to exchange for silver, furs, wool and mules. Trade became of such importance that in 1825 the government surveyed the route in U.S. territory north of the river, and the Upper Crossing, near Chouteau's Island in Kearny County, was recommended because of the shorter distance between the rivers. But despite the danger, the Middle Crossing--various points in the Cimarron-Ingalls area--was used the most. Usually waterless and subject to Indian attacks, the 60 miles of trackless prairie between the Arkansas and Cimarron rivers was called by the Mexicans, Jornada del Muerte, or Journey of Death. Gray County Historical Society 1980

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Santa Fe Trail Ruts west of Dodge City — 8.4 mi
  Two miles of wagon swales up to 400 feet wide on a grass hillside above the Arkansas, nine miles west of Dodge City, a National Historic Landmark seen from a pull-off on US-50.
• Boot Hill Museum — 18 mi
  Dodge City's museum on the site of the original Boot Hill cemetery, a 1950s replica of Front Street built around a collection one family began gathering in the 1870s.

More markers nearby

• Dodge City: Cowboy Capital — 17 mi
• Beersheba — 19 mi
• Fort Dodge — 23 mi
• The Road to Santa Fe — 24 mi