Established as a wagon route by William Becknell in 1822, the Santa Fe Trail became the first major trade link between the eastern United States and Mexico, carrying Missouri materials and supplies to northern Mexico and bringing silvers, furs, and other products back to the U.S. From the 1820s to the 1860s, wagon trains traveled about 12-15 miles per day on the 800 mile journey, which could take 7 weeks, and traffic increased greatly in the late 1840s with the discovery of gold in California as traders, goldseekers, and military troops used the route heavily through the 1850s. As the trail crossed the southern Plains, it split into the Mountain Route, which went west to Colorado before turning south to New Mexico, and the shorter, more heavily used Cimarron Route, also called the Cimarron Cut-off, which crossed present-day Oklahoma. After the Civil War, railroads increasingly carried trade items and military freights, and when the first steam locomotive passed near Santa Fe, New Mexico, on February 9th, 1880, the wagon trail was no longer needed, ending nearly 60 years of commercial use. The trail also profoundly affected the Indians of the Southern Plains, as Comanche, Kiowa, Plains Apache, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors fought to protect their lands from traders and emigrants, but by the mid-1870s intense military pressure and the slaughter of millions of buffalo forced these tribes onto reservations, helping end their nomadic way of life even as the trail opened the Southwest to American expansion.