The Conestoga Wagon

Back in the 1800s when wagon trains were rolling across the American West the army, traders and early settlers utilised many of the ancient Indian paths and old Spanish trails as highways to move troops and transport supplies as did the western bound pioneers travelling with their Conestoga and the lighter built Western Wagons, the long distance transport trucks of their era These heavy duty covered wagons pulled by oxen or horses carried the people and their possessions across...
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Back in the 1800s when wagon trains were rolling across the American West the army, traders and early settlers utilised many of the ancient Indian paths and old Spanish trails as highways to move troops and transport supplies as did the western bound pioneers travelling with their Conestoga and the lighter built Western Wagons, the long distance transport trucks of their era These heavy duty covered wagons pulled by oxen or horses carried the people and their possessions across thousands of miles of open prairie, over towering mountain ranges and through swift flowing rivers in their quest to open up and tame the vast continental land mass stretching all the way to the Pacific Ocean. One such migration route was the Old Spanish Santa Fe Trail running from Independence Missouri to Santa Fe in New Mexico. Just west of Fort Dodge in Kansas at the Cimarron Crossing and almost half way to Santa Fe the trail divided into two routes. The right hand fork that went up through Colorado and passed the Spanish Peaks was the longer but safer northern or Wet Route called The Mountain Branch. The quicker more popular left hand fork of the trail passed through what would become the top corner of Oklahoma, and was the southern or Dry Route called The Cimarron Cutoff. Although this may have been the shorter more direct route it was also a trade-off, as the army and pioneers had to contend with desert conditions and hostile Indians tribes. Even these two routes were not restricted to single narrow trails, as the travellers and their heavy wagons were forced to make diversions of many miles to skirt around deep ruts and washouts caused by previous travellers. After weeks of travel the two routes eventually joined back up again in New Mexico before continuing on to Las Vegas and Santa Fe in the foothills of the Sangre De Christo Mountains. There are many untold stories of heroism, tragedy, massacres and lost wagon trains as the pioneers pushed west. This story tells of an event hidden to history until in 2014 a chance discovery in California opened up a veritable Pandora's box of greed, murder and intrigue stretching back over a hundred and fifty years.