The Santa Fe Trail stretched 750 miles from the Kansas City area to the old Spanish settlement of Santa Fe and was the great overland trade route from the 1820's to the 1870s. Its commercial use began in 1821, when William Becknell headed west with a pack train from Franklin, Mo. For more than 500 miles the road lay in Kansas, angling southwest past landmarks including Council Grove and Pawnee Rock. Between present Larned and Fort Dodge, two routes existed: one on ridges and higher ground for wet weather, and another along the bottom lands near the Arkansas River for dry spells. Farther west, the trail divided again, with one road following the north bank of the Arkansas to Bent's Fort in Colorado before turning south to Santa Fe, while a second route crossed the river at several places and became the cut-off to the Cimarron River through southwest Kansas past Wagon Bed Springs and Point of Rocks. Though shorter, that route was extremely dangerous because of scarce water and the constant threat of Indian attack.