The Old Spanish Trail () is a historical trade route that connected the northern New Mexico settlements of (or near) Santa Fe, New Mexico with those of Los Angeles, California and southern California. Approximately long, the trail ran through areas of high mountains, arid deserts, and deep canyons. It is considered one of the most arduous of all trade routes ever established in the United States. Explored, in part, by Spanish explorers as early as the late 16th century, the trail was extensively used by traders with pack trains from about 1830 until the mid-1850s. The area was part of Mexico from Mexican independence in 1821 to the Mexican Cession to the United States in 1848.
The name of the trail comes from the publication of John C. Frémont’s Report of his 1844 journey (which crossed into Mexico) for the U.S. Topographical Corps, guided by Kit Carson, from California to New Mexico. The name acknowledges that parts of the trail had been known and used by the Spanish since the 16th century. Frémont's report identified a trail that had already been used for about 15 years. The trail is important to New Mexico history because it established an arduous but usable trade route with California.
In 2002 this trail was designated by Congress as part of the National Trails System as Old Spanish National Historic Trail.
History
The trail is a combination of a network of trails first established by indigenous people and later used by Spanish explorers, trappers, and traders with the Ute and other indigenous tribes. The eastern parts of what became called the Old Spanish Trail, including southwest Colorado and southeast Utah, were explored by Juan Maria de Rivera in 1765. Franciscan missionaries Francisco Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante unsuccessfully attempted the trip to California, which was just being settled, leaving Santa Fe in 1776 and making it to the Great Basin near Utah Lake before returning via the Arizona Strip. Other expeditions, under another Franciscan missionary, Francisco Garcés, and Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, explored and traded in the southern part of the region. They found shorter and less arduous routes through the mountains and deserts that connected Sonora to New Mexico and California, but these did not become part of the Old Spanish Trail, with the exception of some of the paths through the Mojave Desert. The Mohave Trail was first traveled by Garcés from the Mohave villages on the Colorado River westward across the Mojave Desert, between desert springs, until he turned northwestward to the Old Tejon Pass into the San Joaquin Valley, looking for a route to Monterey. Garcés returned to the Colorado River by following the whole length of the Mohave Trail from the San Bernardino Valley, over the San Bernardino Mountains at Monument Peak, down the Mojave River and eastward to the Colorado River. This same trail was used by the first Americans to reach California by land, via the expedition led by Jedediah Smith in November 1826. The Mojave desert section of the Mohave Trail is now a jeep trail called the Mojave Road.
A route linking New Mexico to California, combining information from many explorers, was opened in 1829-30 when Santa Fe merchant Antonio Armijo led a trade party of 60 men and a caravan of mules to Alta California. Armijo’s group blazed a trade route using a network of indigenous routes, incorporating parts of Jedediah Smith’s routes of 1826 and 1827, and Rafael Rivera’s route of 1828 to the San Gabriel Mission through the Mojave along the Mojave River. Armijo documented his route in a report to the governor, and this was published by the Mexican government in June 1830.
After this date, traders generally used the trail for a single, annual round trip. Word spread about Armijo's successful trade expedition, and some commerce began between Santa Fe and Los Angeles. However, in 1830, due to resumed hostilities with the Navajo, the Armijo route west to the Colorado River Crossing of the Fathers was not practical. A new route north of the river had to be found, which used the trails of the fur traders and trappers of New Mexico through the lands of the Ute. This route ran northwest to the Colorado and Green rivers, then crossed over to the Sevier River, which it followed until crossing westward over mountains to the vicinity of Parowan, Utah. It passed southward to the Santa Clara River, linking up with Armijo's route to California.