Be sure to visit www.santafetrail.org/geocaching to learn about the PASSPORT ACTIVITY to accompany this Geo Tour. The Santa Fe Trail passed by this area bringing people and trade goods along the route. Just to the south, the Arkansas River formed the border with Mexico until 1846. Prior to the establishment of Bent’s Old Fort (near present-day Las Animas, CO) Santa Fe Trail traffic crossed that Arkansas River at several places to follow what was known as the Cimarron Route to Santa Fe. When Bent’s Fort was established north of the Arkansas River in 1833, Santa Fe Trail traffic could follow the Cimarron Route, or what became known as the Raton Route, or the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. The fort was an active trading post from 1833 to 1849.
Robert Wright (Santa Fe Trail traveler, ranch operator, founder of Dodge City and western Kansas pioneer of 1859) was quoted as follows: "I will say that the biggest trail and by far the most traveled long before 1859, was west of the Cimarron crossing, on the north side of the Arkansas river. After 1863 [i. e., 1864] when the Indians broke out, more than three-fourths of all travel took this route as far as Bent's Fort. . . ." Wright was quoted in the Topeka Daily Capital, October 24, 1907, or, see "Trails Clippings," v. 1, pt. 2, p. 157 (in KSHS library).
Traders and travelers using the Santa Fe Trail required accommodations, supplies, and protection. A trading ranch was established in 1866 to meet those needs approximately 1-2 miles west of present-day Cimarron, KS, where the junction of the River Trail and the bottom of the nine-mile ridge. Nothing remains of the trading ranch today. At full force there were 12 armed men at the ranch known as Cimarron Crossing station.
The Ranch at Cimarron Crossing (1866-1868)
From New Hampshire, in the fall of 1865, John Francis (Frank) Hartwell, aged 30, and his brother William H. Hartwell, 21, arrived in Kansas to seek their fortune. There was news that the stage line's starting point would be moved westwards. The Junction City Union of June 23, 1866, reported the Santa Fe Stage Company would run from Junction City to Santa Fe after July 1. The division superintendent of the stage line told the Hartwell’s the company was in need of a ranch at the Cimarron Crossing of the Arkansas River, on the Santa Fe Trail, but warned that it was a dangerous undertaking because of hostile Indians. Quoting William Hartwell's reminiscences of his ranching years:
“Cimeron Crossing of the Arkansas River -- twenty six miles west of Ft. Dodge was represented as a no. one place for a good ranch. At this point the two routes to New Mexico separated, the Cimeron route crossing the river, . . . while that known as the Raton followed up the north side, crossing at Bent's old fort in Colorado. . . I then lost no time in loading up our household stuff, and with a good team, took the risk of being plundered and scalped, by pushing forward, part of the time alone, until I arrived safely, in due time at our destination.
The site of our habitation was indeed primal. We were in the midst of a vast open plain, covered only with cactus on the higher ground and with grass in the river bottoms as high as a man on horseback. Prarie-dog towns were everywhere. Buffalo could be seen in any direction, and for an hour at a time the river might be heard roaring in the night from the crossing of great herds, plunging through at an unchecked headlong lope. Wolves and prarie-dogs made doleful plaint from darkness until dawn, so that all about us was open and lonely.
It behooved us to build as rapidly as possible. The material used was turf and we had to go twenty miles for timber upon which to lay the roofing, consisting first of poles, then a layer of buffalo hides and gunny sacks and upon this an eight inch course of dirt or sod. When Cimeron [ranch] was completed she consisted of a kaavl [corral] one hundred steps square, the main building -- forty by sixteen feet -- joining on the South West corner with a two story round tower -- pierced with loop holes from which we could fire our trusty carbines in any direction. In the North East corner of our kaavl was a stage driver's lobby and a similar tower arose out of it, while the remainder of this enclosure furnished stabling capacity for forty heads of mules. The walls were two feet thick, so that every part of the building was not only secure against fire and weather, but also proof against bullets. With a supply of water which we kept in barrels, we could have withstood a siege. [21]
For further reading:
William H. Hartwell's reminiscences of Santa Fe trail experiences (a typed copy of which is in the Society's manuscript division) have been published in Corral Dust (Potomac Corral of The Westerners), v. 9, no. 2 (Spring, 1964), pp. 4-8 and The recollections of Charles Raber, a freighter in the mid-1860's, published in Kansas Historical Collections (KHC), v. 16.
Most of the containers on the Santa Fe National Historic Trail Geo Tour are military ammunition canisters with an identifying Santa Fe Trail Association yellow sticker on the top of the box, under the handle and the dark green geocaching.com ID is on the side of the boxes with the information that provides coordinates, who set the cache and who to contact for information. However, because of all the muggles in this park, we have had to change this one to a micro, with a log only. We are sorry that we were not able to continue to offer all the extra swag and information at this site, but our container kept getting stolen. If you are participating in the Passport activity, you know that the code word is generally located on the inside of the box, on the top of the lid and is clearly identified as Code Word. Since this is a micro and we were not able to put the code word on the lid, please contact us at: info@santafetrail.org and we will provide you with the code word. We are sorry for this change of procedure, but it is necessary in order to maintain a cache at this very significant site on the Santa Fe Trail. Permission to set caches has been obtained. We ask that all cachers please respect all property at the sites where our caches are set.