The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore

David Dary

Penguin, 2002 - History - 368 pages

From 1610 to the 1860s the Santa Fe Trail, which ran from Missouri and Kansas to New Mexico, was a principal artery to and from the Southwest. Drawing from letters, journals, expedition reports, and newspaper articles, David Dary opens a window into the lives of the people who forged this trail and opened commerce with Spanish America. These firsthand accounts from Native Americans, mountain men, traders, trappers, freighters, surveyors, and soldiers reveal the spectacular details of life on the trail-from the early years when trade was controlled by the Spanish to the gradual establishment of towns that brought new prosperity and the advent of the railroads that changed an entire way of life.

About the author

David Dary is a writer, journalist, and social historian. Dary worked for newspapers in Kansas and Texas early on in his career and eventually moved on to work for both CBS and NBC news. He then took the position of professor at the William Allan White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. The themes of Dary's books center on many aspects of life in the western United States. Dary has written Red Blood and Black Ink: Journalism in the Old West, Entrepreneurs of the Old West, and Seeking Pleasure in the Old West, which received a Western Writers of America Spur Award. He has also received a Cowboy Hall of Fame Wrangler Award and the Westerner's International Award for his book Cowboy Culture.

Bibliographic information

• Title: The Santa Fe Trail: Its History, Legends, and Lore; Penguin books
• Author: David Dary
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: Penguin, 2002
• ISBN: 0142000582, 9780142000588
• Length: 368 pages
• Subjects: History / United States / 19th Century; History / United States / Civil War Period (1850-1877); History / United States / Colonial Period (1600-1775); History / United States / State & Local / General