Fort Smith - Santa Fe Trail - Borger, TX
Posted by: 
YoSam.
N 35° 39.258 W 101° 24.323
14S E 282245 N 3948271
The Southern Route and the Gila River was the earliest path followed by European explorers and settlers bound for California. Yet, in spite of its primacy, the Southern Route is one of the lesser-studied travel corridors to the New West
Waymark Code: WM12ZXX
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 08/17/2020
Views: 1
County of marker: Hutchinson County
Location of marker: Gregg Dr. & Marcy Trail, @ gazebo & library, Frank Phillips Junior College (1300 W. Roosevelt St.), Borger
Marker erected by: Texas Historical Commission
Date marker erected: 1974
Marker text:
FORT SMITH - SANTA FE TRAIL
Josiah Gregg (1806-50) blazed the Fort Smith-Santa Fe Trail in 1840 as a shorter route between the U.S. and New Mexico. He crossed this site on March 17, 1840, while returning to Arkansas from a trading expedition to Santa Fe and Chihuahua. In a book, "Commerce of the Prairies", published in 1844, Gregg recommended the new route, which paralleled the Canadian River. Over 2,000 California-bound gold seekers traveled it in 1849. The largest wagon train of that year was accompanied by U.S. Army troops commanded by Captain Randolph B. Marcy (1812-87), who made a survey of the trail for a proposed National Wagon Road. Marcy's party crossed this site on June 9, 1849.
The extensive use of the Fort Smith-Santa Fe Trail in the early 1850s caused it to be considered as a favorable route for a transcontinental railroad. Lt. A.W. Whipple of the Army Corps of Engineer surveyed a possible route in the summer of 1853. By the late 1850s, emigrants were traveling a more southern road through El Paso, which was eventually to become the southern railroad route, and the Fort Smith-Santa Fe Trail fell into disuse and was finally abandoned.
In many places on the Plains, the wagon ruts are still visible in the undisturbed prairie sod.