In the early 19th century, the Santa Fe and Taos trails became the most renowned trading routes in the West. For 60 years, American and Mexican traders drove great caravans of prairie schooners across a sweeping sea of grass along an 800-mile route linking Independence and other Missouri towns with Santa Fe, the capital of New Mexico. At the same time, Taos traders and trappers used the shorter Taos Trail to join New Mexico with the commerce of the western plains. The Taos Trail passed through this area as it connected the Upper Arkansas Valley with Taos, New Mexico, by way of Sangre de Cristo Pass and other mountain routes, provided a third option to the Mountain and Cimarron branches of the Santa Fe Trail, and linked this region of the Southwest with the Overland Trail complex that followed the Platte River system farther north. The Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail followed the Arkansas River, where food and water were abundant; though longer and more difficult, especially at Raton Pass, it offered a safer and surer passage than the dangerous Cimarron Cut-off. Bent's Fort, a trading post established about 1834, provided respite on the long journey and enhanced trade with the Cheyenne and other tribes. The Cimarron Branch, or Cimarron Cut-off, saved time but crossed a parched country with little water and hostile Indians; though more dangerous than the Mountain Branch, it was the preferred route until the late 1840s, when a road was built over Raton Pass. The trails flourished until about 1880, when railroad construction over the same routes brought the caravan trade to an end.