The End of the Road

In the mid-1800s and late 1800s, this corral served as a major freight destination at the end of an 800-mile journey across the Great Plains, where teamsters with Army contracts arrived with cargo carried under canvas on iron-shod wagon wheels and where many freight companies continued another 80 miles to Santa Fe or turned at the Rio Grande to carry goods another 500 miles south to Chihuahua, Mexico. Wagon trains crossed the Plains only in summer and early fall, when enough grass was available to feed mules and oxen, and their average day's progress was just 8-10 miles. In some years, over 3,000 wagons made the trip, accompanied by the noise of braying mules, bellowing oxen, creaking leather harness, and jingling trace chains, and sustained by hundreds of tons of hay and grain feed.

Watrous, New Mexico · United States