Cimarron County has a rich Old West history tied to the Santa Fe Trail, which cut through this corner of the county as a wagon route linking the eastern United States and Mexico and was heavily used from the 1820s until railroads were built in the 1860s by wagon trains carrying goods for trade with Mexico. This area of the Oklahoma panhandle was once claimed by the Texas Republic but was forfeited when Texas sought admission to the Union as a slave-holding state, and its rugged, remote, lawless character made it a hideout for criminals including the notorious gang of William Coe, whose headquarters, Robbers Roost, was near here, until No Man's Land officially became part of Oklahoma Territory on April 22, 1889. The region was also the ancestral homeland of the Plains Indians, most of whom were bison hunters who relied on bison for food, shelter, utensils, and an essential part of their religious beliefs, and the Santa Fe Trail played a role in historic events that tragically ended their nomadic way of life. Long before that, Spanish expeditions crossed this region in search of the mythical Quivira, a city of gold, as Francisco de Coronado traveled near here in 1541 and Juan de Onate followed in 1601, finding no gold but encountering Native Americans whose cultures were the real treasures of the Plains.