The one thousand two hundred-mile El Camino Real was the main artery for exploration, travel, commerce, and settlement in what is now New Mexico from the sixteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth century. In this region, much of the route followed the edge of the Rio Grande, including the section directly below the ruins of Fort Craig, but south of this location and north of present-day Las Cruces, high gravel ridges and deeply cut arroyos along the riverbanks made travel impossible for two-wheeled Spanish carretas. Travelers were forced to leave the river for a ninety-mile trek across open desert known as La Jornada del Muerta, "Journey of the Dead Man," the most treacherous section of El Camino Real. From Juan de Oñate's opening of the Jornada in 1598 through the era of Fort Craig, travelers faced scorching summer heat, frigid winter winds, lack of water for themselves and their herds, and possible attack by Mescalero, Chiricahua, and Gila Apache watching from the surrounding hills. Fort Craig was built a few miles north of the original paraje, a resting place for travelers before or after crossing this dangerous stretch, and because of its important location, this paraje became one of the few such campsites to grow into a small town of the same name, El Paraje, which lasted as a farming community into the early twentieth century. For more than two hundred years, El Camino Real was the principal overland route between Mexico City and the Territory of New Mexico, and the northern Jornada del Muerto paralleled the Fra Cristobal mountain range to the southeast.