Research

Research about Santa Fe Trail events and routes is ongoing. The National Park Service works cooperatively with scholars, site managers, and others to learn more about trail-related stories and sites. Since 1990, the agency has worked with a number of partners — the Santa Fe Trail Association, universities, museums, historical societies, and other nonprofit entities — on Santa Fe Trail projects. Many of the results of those projects have been published in issues of Wagon Tracks, which is the Santa Fe Trail Association’s quarterly newsletter. These projects have brought forth new historical trail information; new or modified trail segments have been identified; several buildings have been identified as being thematically related to the Santa Fe Trail; several roadside interpretive exhibits have been erected; and new museum exhibits have been developed and are now on display.

Our collective goal is to to protect, preserve, and commemorate the history and properties associated with the Santa Fe Trail. If you have a project idea that can add new historical information or challenge existing notions about the trail, contact the National Trails staff using the Contact Us link at the bottom of this webpage.

Go to the links below to access completed research projects as listed by state. Trailwide research covers the entire trail through all of the states. Many of these research documents are several megabytes in size, so they will take some time to download.

• Colorado Research

• New Mexico Research

• Trailwide Research

 

Additional Research:

• National Register Research

• Bibliography

• Early Interior Department Studies

 

For those who would like to undertake additional research about the Santa Fe Trail, many sources are available. Historians can access a vast number of diaries, journals, and secondary sources on the subject. Although published some 40 years ago, the standard reference work on the trail, with more than 700 sources listed, is Jack D. Rittenhouse's The Santa Fe Trail: A Historical Bibliography (Albuquerque, University of New Mexico Press). Selected trail-related sources are noted in the bibliography. Those interested in further research may wish to consider the following facilities:

• Colorado Historical Society, Denver
• Denver Public Library, Western History and Genealogy Collection
• National Archives
• University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas Collection
• University of Missouri, Columbia, State Historical Society Collections
• The Genealogical Society of Hispanic America
• Hispanic Genealogical Research Center of NM, Albuquerque
• NM State Records Center and Archives
• NM State Library, Southwest Collection
• University of NM, Center for Southwest Research
• University of Oklahoma, Norman, Western History Collections

Before visiting any of these facilities, please contact the archival staff regarding the purpose of your visit and the nature of the records that you want to investigate.