The Santa Fe Trail began in 1821 as a 900-mile foreign trade route to New Mexico. It was unique in American History due to its overland commerce routes rather than seafaring transportation. Colonel Henry Inman (1837-1899) was an Assistant Quartermaster in the United States Army. The Old Santa Fe Trail The Story of a Great Highway has a preface written by Buffalo Bill. The preface begins As we look into the open fire for our fancies, so we are apt to study the dim past for the wonderful and sublime, forgetful of the fact ...
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The Santa Fe Trail began in 1821 as a 900-mile foreign trade route to New Mexico. It was unique in American History due to its overland commerce routes rather than seafaring transportation. Colonel Henry Inman (1837-1899) was an Assistant Quartermaster in the United States Army. The Old Santa Fe Trail The Story of a Great Highway has a preface written by Buffalo Bill. The preface begins As we look into the open fire for our fancies, so we are apt to study the dim past for the wonderful and sublime, forgetful of the fact that the present is a constant romance, and that the happenings of to-day which we count of little importance are sure to startle somebody in the future, and engage the pen of the historian, philosopher, and poet. Accustomed, as we are to think of the vast steppes of Russia and Siberia as alike strange and boundless, and to deal with the unknown interior of Africa as an impenetrable mystery, we lose sight of a locality in our own country that once surpassed all these in virgin grandeur, in majestic solitude, and in all the attributes of a tremendous wilderness. The story of the Old Santa Fe Trail, so truthfully recalled by Colonel Henry Inman, ex-officer of the old Regular Army, in these pages, is a most thrilling one. The vast area through which the famous highway ran is still imperfectly known to most people as "The West"; a designation once appropriate, but hardly applicable now; for in these days of easy communication the real trail region is not so far removed from New York as Buffalo was seventy years ago.
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