History:

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 U. S. 50) following the Arkansas River to Bent's Fort (near LaJunta, Colorado), then south over Raton Pass.

William Becknell first traveled the dry route with a packtrain 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. Here in 1 83 1, the large, well-equipped train of Jedediah Smith, famous Rocky Mountain explorer and fur trader, became lost in the maze of buffalo trails. Seeking water for the dying animals and suffering men, Smith finally found the Cimarron but was killed by the Comanches near Wagon Bed Springs.

The Santa Fe Trail, nearly 800 miles long with 500 of it in Kansas, began successively at the Missouri towns of Franklin, Independence, and Westport. In 1829, because of trouble with Indians, traders began going in big caravans for protection. The gathering place was Council Grove, where they organized and started in mid-May when grass was sufficient to pasture the animals. Food supplies per man were 50 lbs. each of flour, and bacon, 20 lbs. each of sugar, rice and beans, and a little salt. Buffalo furnished fresh meat.

Trains traveled in two parallel lines usually, in four where they could. Emigrant wagons were drawn by eight mules or oxen, but the big Santa Fe trade wagons required ten or twelve. A day's journey was about 15 miles. Camp was made early in the afternoon, and teams put out to graze. At dusk the animals were driven into a corral made by parking the wagons in a circle. A heavy chain joined the tongue of each wagon with the rear axle of the wagon ahead. Thus the wagons served both as corral and fortress. About 50 monotonous, sometimes dangerous, days would pass before the travelers were welcomed at Santa Fe.

By 1843, trade over the Trail amounted to $450,000 a year. Outbreak of war with Mexico in 1846 brought even heavier traffic as soldiers and their supplies followed the Arkansas River, the boundary of U. S. territory. In 1847, since supply wagons were staffed by tenderfeet, Comanches became more daring than ever. That summer, according to William Gilpin who commanded an expedition to restrain them, they killed 47 men and burned 200 wagons.

Discovery of gold in California in 1848 drew many forty-niners the next year, and the Colorado gold strike in 1858 caused a similar rush of travelers. In response to clamor for faster mail service from settlers in western Kansas, Colorado and the Far West, Congress voted money for the first mail coach to Santa Fe. The coach, drawn by six mules, carried the mail, eight guards to protect it from Indian attacks, and eight passengers. At first the trip required a month, but after relay stations were set up for a change of drivers and animals, the time was reduced to 15 days.

Several years later, Barlow, Sanderson & Co. ran a triweekly stage from Kansas City to Santa Fe with a running time of 7 days. Relays were provided from 30 to 50 miles apart. The stage was accompanied by a light wagon which carried food and bedding. This line branched at Ft. Lyon, Colorado, near old Bent's Fort, with the main line going to Santa Fe and the branch to Pueblo and Denver.

The plains tribes were disturbed by the number of travelers in the Pike's Peak gold rush, and by the pressure of settlers after passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. Slaughter of Black Kettle's band of Cheyennes by Col. Chivington's Colorado militia in 1864 angered them, and raiders roomed the Trail from Council Grove west. They fell upon scattered homesteads, killed the people, and drove away their livestock. For protection, Forts Zarah (near Great Bend); Dodge (east of Dodge City); and Aubrey (near the state line) were set up in 1864. Ft. Larned, seven miles from present Larned, had been established in 1859.

Hay ranches which supplied the trains and stagecoaches with livestock, hay and grain were attacked. In 1864 Col. Bob Wright, later of Dodge City, was forced to abandon his well-fortified ranch near the site of Ft. Aubrey. In 1866, he and A. J. Anthony operated the Cimarron hay station, and the government had ten men and a sergeant stationed there on escort duty with the U. S. mail.

In 1867-68, 210 persons were killed by Indians in Kansas, about the total in the previous 20 years. In 1868, because of frequent severe attacks, the stage run had to be discontinued, and travel on the Trail almost ceased. The Indians fought fiercely because they realized they were being driven out of their lands, and believed the white men had not fulfilled the terms of several treaties. One of the items agreed upon at the Indians would have the right to hunt buffalo as far north as the Arkansas in Kansas. It was their understanding and that of most white men as well, that white hunters would not cross the Arkansas. However, the white men did so, pushing south into Indian country, and even to the Texas Panhandle. That year at the Cimarron Crossing, a wagon train was captured; seventeen men tortured to death by fire.

In 1 869, the Indians were defeated decisively, and travel resumed on the Trail. The rails of the Santa Fe were laid to the state line by December 1872, but workers improving the roadbed the next year had to be protected by soldiers from attacks of hostile Indians. That same year, Indians burned the Tom O'Loughlin store at Pierceville, 20 miles west of here.

In 1878, warned of possible Indian attack, settlers fled to Cimarron and prepared to defend themselves. However, in the last Indian raid in Kansas, Dull Knife and his band of Northern Cheyennes heading for their homeland on the Rosebud, crossed the Arkansas 5 miles west, and followed the Ogallalah cattle trail northward, after burning a shack on the Frank Hull claim.

Travel on the Colorado-New Mexico part of the Trail continued until the railroad was built south of Santa Fe in 1 880.

On the hills north of US 50 about nine miles east of Cimarron, the ruts of the Santa Fe are still plain.