After resting and resupplying at Fort Union, traders headed west through the last 130 miles to Santa Fe, passing first the trading post at Watrous and then Las Vegas, a small town founded as a trail stop in 1835. Along this stretch, Starvation Peak, also known as Bernal Hill, served as a well-known landmark visible for miles, and Bernal Spring provided water while a stage station stood nearby for a time. At Watrous, Samuel Watrous opened a trading store in 1849 in a structure that served Santa Fe Trail traders until the end of the trail era; the town, originally called La Junta, was renamed Watrous when the railroad arrived. In Las Vegas, from the top of a flat-roofed adobe structure on the north side of the plaza, Brigadier General Stephen Watts Kearny claimed the New Mexico territory for the United States in 1846. At Kearnys Gap in 1821, Captain Ignacio Gallego met trader William Becknell's party from Missouri, and because Mexican independence from Spain two months earlier allowed Governor Facundo Melgares to welcome Becknell, the Santa Fe Trail opened to legal international commerce between Mexico and the United States. San Miguel del Vado, whose church was part of the first Hispanic settlement on the trail, stood near a Pecos River crossing used by westbound caravans as a port of entry and campsite for traders bound for Santa Fe. Near Pecos, arrival at Kozlowski’s Stage Station, a trading post and stage station now within Pecos National Historical Park, meant wagon trains were only days from Santa Fe; it was known for excellent food and also served as a Union camp during the Civil War battle at Glorieta Pass.