Raton Pass

Raton Pass was the shortest and most practicable route from the upper Arkansas Valley to New Mexico. Both as a barrier and a gateway, the Raton Mountains symbolized the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail as did no other landmark. Those who traveled this way viewed Raton Pass as the climactic challenge of the trip to Santa Fe, for ahead, under the looming cliffs of castellated Fisher's Peak, lay a tortuous, rugged trail that claimed many wagons and animals as the price of passage. Because this way was hard, and because it was longer than the Cimarron Cutoff by a hundred miles, it was not as significant as the shorter route in the routine progress of trail development. However, at times of decision, when the course of history was being abruptly altered, the Mountain Branch, and its greatest landmark, Raton Pass, played crucial roles, most notably in Kearney's conquest of New Mexico in 1846, and the Colorado Volunteers' staunching of the Confederate invasion in 1862.

History

The first man to cross Raton Pass with wagons was Captain William Becknell in 1821, Before him there had been Indians, Conquistadores, trappers, and traders, but all these had traveled on foot or with horses or mules trains. Becknell traveled west from Franklin, Missouri to Bent's Fort, Colorado, and then south through the Raton Pass. The narrow trail followed the dry rocky bed of Raton Creek on the north ascent and Old Willow Creek on the southern descent. The narrow defile was so craggy as to permit the passage of only one wagon at a time at some places, and the wagon axles were splintered and sawed by the rocks which covered the "trail". Although Becknell "opened" Raton Pass for wagon traffic, the next year, 1822, he opened up a new route, the Cimarron Cutoff, which cut across the Cimarron Desert, south of the Mountain Trail. The hazards of the desert and the increased Indian harassment were soon judged to be less*troublesome than Raton Pass and the longer Mountain Branch, and by the time of the Mexican War the Cimarron Cutoff had replaced the Mountain Branch as "the" Santa Fe Trail, and until the outbreak of the Civil War and the increased danger of Confederate as well as Indian raiding, the Mountain Branch was virtually abandoned. In 1846, the Mountain Branch played a crucial part in the invasion of New Mexico by Kearney's Army of the West. Kearney's selection of the Mountain Branch was based on two major factors: one, Bent's Fort offered a convenient base of operations, closer than any other to the hostile territory, and two, the Mountain Branch was better watered than the notorious Cimarron Desert in the middle of the summer. Kearney set out from Bent's Fort on August 2, followed by a train of traders. Road crews were sent out in advance to improve the trail through the Pass as best they could. The army crossed in one day with great difficulty; in many places, they were forced to raise the wagons over sharp spurs with ropes, but it was in the descent that the narrow and rocky trail wreaked the greatest havoc, and many wagons were destroyed. After the passage of the Army of the West, the Mountain Branch was abandoned except the random caravan with business at Bent's Fort. Once again, however, with the outbreak of war, in 1860, the Mountain Branch became the more traveled route due to the vulnerability of the Cimarron Cutoff to Confederate raiders. The Trail at this time became largely a Union supply route, and armed protection of the supply trains was a necessity. In addition to the Confederate raiders, the withdrawal of Federal troops from the frontier outposts stimulated an increase in Indian attacks on the trains. Union patrols along the Mountain Branch were a routine necessity for keeping the lifeline of the Western troops. In 1862, Raton Pass further served the Union cause when it was used by the Colorado Volunteers in their rush to join the Union troops at Glorieta Pass where the Confederate invasion of the southwest was halted. In 1865, with the close of the war, an individual approached the territorial legislatures of Colorado and New Mexico for charters to build a road from Trinidad, Colorado, to the Canadian River in New Mexico. Richens L. "Uncle Dick" Wootton's plan was to build a toll road through Raton Pass, and his charters were granted without trouble. In the spring of 1866, he began the clearing, grading, blasting, and bridge building necessary to make an all-year road suitable for heavy wagon and stagecoach travel out of the twenty-seven-mile stretch which had been termed the worst on the entire Santa Fe Trail. Wootton's efforts were amply rewarded as traffic from New Mexico to eastern Colorado through the Pass increased heavily, and Wootton collected $1.50 a wagon. The Barlow-Sanderson Company established a stage station at Wooten's Ranch, five miles below the summit on the northern slope and Uncle Dick became an innkeeper as well. By 1868, the advancing rail-head had bypassed the Cimarron Cutoff and the toll road received the bulk of the wagon traffic, but by 1879-80, the Santa Fe Railroad had scaled Raton Pass through a series of switchbacks, and Wootton's toll road was crowded out, as was the San Fe Trail itself. The railroad has since been routed under the summit of the Pass using a tunnel, but it still follows the route of the old" Trail along Raton Creek on the north side and Willow Creek on the south. Thus, the best-preserved remains of the Trail exist on the "saddle," or summit of the Pass.