Kane Springs in San Juan County was a major water stop along the Spanish Trail, which was used from 1829 to 1848. Large trade caravans halted there to drink from its abundant spring waters. In the autumn, pack trains carried woolen textiles and raw wool from settlements on the upper Rio Grande to the coastal towns of California, where merchants exchanged these goods for horses and mules that were driven back to New Mexico the following spring. Trail riders took more than two months to complete the 1,120-mile journey from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Los Angeles, California, along a northward-looping route through the rugged southern and central landscapes of Utah that avoided the deep canyons of the Colorado River and hostile Indians of Arizona. In 1848, at the end of the Mexican War, the territory encompassing the Spanish Trail became part of the United States, and caravan traffic thereafter followed direct east-west lines. After the trail period, the waters of Kane Springs continued to refresh travelers, cattle drovers, pioneer settlers, and outlaws.