The Santa Fe Trail spanned nine hundred miles of the Great Plains between the United States in Missouri and Mexico in Santa Fe, serving for sixty years as a major route of commerce, military movement, emigration, and international trade that influenced economies as far away as New York and London before railroad expansion gradually shortened it and replaced it in 1880. Along its Missouri route, Boonville, platted in 1817 on the south bank of the Missouri River, was home to traders such as James L. Collins, captain of the 1828 Santa Fe Trail caravan, and retains numerous nineteenth-century structures. Boone's Lick began as a salt works established in 1805 by Daniel Boone's sons Nathan and Daniel Morgan Boone, and William Becknell later managed it after the War of 1812. Arrow Rock, shown on maps from 1732, marked a Missouri River crossing of the Osage Trace that became the Santa Fe Trail and served as a landmark for explorers, traders, and travelers. Trail ruts remain visible at Weinrich and Grand Pass where the route crossed Indian Spring and Harvey Spring. Waverly, first founded as Middleton, was among the earliest towns along the Osage Trace that became the Road to Santa Fe. Lexington outfitted caravans in the 1820s and 1830s and served as headquarters for major outfitters including the Aull Brothers and Russell, Majors and Waddell. Fort Osage, founded in 1808 under William Clark's direction for the fur trade with the Osage and other tribes, later became a staging area for George Sibley's 1825–27 Santa Fe Trail survey after Congress ended the Indian trade in 1822. From 1828 until the mid-1840s, Independence was the principal point for Santa Fe traders and emigrants heading west.
