View Landmarks along the Santa Fe Trail

Rabbit Ears Mountain served as a vital landmark for Santa Fe Trail travelers on the Cimarron Route. Located in North Eastern New Mexico, this largely undeveloped area offers a step into the past. Follow in the footsteps of Trail travelers and use Rabbit Ears Mountain to guide your visit to nearby sites where you will see Trail ruts, campsites, and grasslands.

Wagon Mound is a village in Mora County, New Mexico, United States. It is named after and located at the foot of a butte called Wagon Mound, which was a landmark for covered wagon trains and traders going up and down the Santa Fe Trail. It is now Wagon Mound National Historic Landmark. Santa Clara Cemetery, in Wagon Mound, contains the gravestone of Charles Fraker, a Santa Fe Trail traveler.

Starvation peak is butte that sits at over 7,000 feet, located on along Interstate 25 between the town of Pecos and Las Vegas. A prominent landmark to motorists on the highway today, it was also a noted landmark on the Santa Fe Trail. Santa Fe travelers stopping at Bernal Springs would be camping below the towering butte. 

Raton Pass, at the border of present day New Mexico and Colorado, was one of the most important, yet treacherous, segments of the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. The pass cut through the snow-capped Sangre de Cristo Mountains, allowing wagons access to the vast western territory. Shorter routes were eventually developed, but Raton Pass, which crossed easier terrain, remained in use.

The Santa Fe Spring, also known as Big Spring and Arrow Rock Spring, was an important water source for Santa Fe Trail travelers heading West. Visit the spring while exploring Arrow Rock State Historic Site.

Since the late 1820s, Sapling Grove, located on the headwaters of Turkey Creek, was a significant campsite on the Santa Fe Trail. George Sibley, an Indian agent who was commissioned to survey the trail in 1825-27, included Sapling Grove on his list of campsites. The park has several interpretive historical markers that discuss 19th century trail activities.

Check out this well-known landmark on the Santa Fe Trail.

Several Santa Fe Trail routes coursed through these grasslands, including the Mountain Route, the Granada-Ft. Union Wagon Road, and the Aubry Cutoff. This vast grassland covers more than 440,000 discontinuous acres in southeastern Colorado. It is composed of a large Carrizo Unit near Springfield, along with a smaller Timpas Unit southwest of La Junta. The grassland's headquarters are located at 27204 Highway 287 in Springfield.