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The Pathways Of The West.
Since we have declared ourselves to be less interested in bald chronology than in the naturally connected causes of events which make chronology worth while, we may now, perhaps, double back upon the path of chronology, and take up the great early highways of the West--what we might call the points of attack against the frontier.
The story of the Santa Fe Trail, now passing into oblivion, once was on the tongue of every man.

This old highroad in its heyday presented the most romantic and appealing features of the earlier frontier life.

The Santa Fe Trail was the great path of commerce between our frontier and the Spanish towns trading through Santa Fe.

This commerce began in 1822, when about threescore men shipped certain goods across the lower Plains by pack-animals.