This geocache is part of the Santa Fe National Historic Trail GeoTour, which means you can win prizes by finding 50 or more of the caches. Visit our website at www.santafetrail.org/geocaching for more information and to download your GeoTour Passport!
Containers on the Santa Fe National Historic Trail Geo Tour are military ammunition canisters, plastic containers or brochure boxes. All caches have an identifying Santa Fe Trail Association yellow sticker on the box, a Santa Fe National Historic Trail logo is on most containers, and all containers have the dark green geocaching.com ID with the information that provides coordinates, who set the cache and who to contact for information. Each cache contains a logbook to sign, a variety of items that provide information about the Santa Fe Trail as well as swag items. If you are participating in the Passport activity, the code word is located on the inside of the box, on the top of the lid and is clearly identified as Code Word. To learn about the PASSPORT ACTIVITY, or to print your copy of the Passport, visit: www.santafetrail.org and click on the link on the homepage. Permission to set caches has been obtained. We ask that all cachers please respect all property at the sites where our caches are set.
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 the 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 cross the Arkansas River and follow the Cimarron Route, or travel the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail with a stop at Bent’s Fort which 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. South of this geocache, a trading ranch was established in 1866 by William and Frank Hartwell and several other investors, to meet those needs. It was later operated by Robert Wright and A. J. Anthony. At full force there were 12 armed men at the ranch known as Cimarron Crossing station that also served as a stage station. It was in operation until 1868 when the continuous threat of Indian attack forced it to be abandoned. Nothing remains of the trading ranch today.
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.
The recollections of Charles Raber, a freighter in the mid-1860's, published in Kansas Historical Collections (KHC), v. 16.
The Santa Fe National Historic Trail GeoTour previously had a cache located at the Cimarron Crossing Park at N 37° 47’ 57.81” W 100° 21’ 03.11”. Due to the cache being stolen numerous times, we decided to move it to this location, which does not have as many muggles. We do encourage you to visit the Cimarron Crossing Park, located on the south side of Cimarron, KS and next to the Arkansas River. This nice, little park has several interpretive wayside exhibits, including one about the Ranch at Cimarron Crossing, as well as picnic areas, a hiking path and restrooms. This is also one of the few places that visitors can walk a short distance and actually be in the bed of the Arkansas River -- now dry most of the time. This provides travelers with an opportunity to explore the area that was once a dividing point between nations.