Bent’s Fort, Santa Fe Trail
Down the Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail consisted of eight hundred miles of barren land, sandy deserts, and high mountain passes. Travelers had to battle hunger, thirst, and occasional raids by Comanches.
Once you reached your destination, a whitewashed city at the foot of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains, you were never sure if you’d be allowed to sell your goods. Or if they’d be confiscated and you thrown into jail.
The Route
The places you went by along the way like Bent’s Fort, the Cimmaron Cutoff, and Raton Pass have remained legendary in the minds of all true westerners even today. The Santa Fe Trail stretched from Independence, Missouri to Santa Fe, in what we now call New Mexico.
The who went down it included everyone from a young Army Lieutenant named Zebulon Montgomery Pike to William Becknell, the trailblazer of the cutoff, to Christopher “Kit” Carson. It took them a good month to get there with no guarantees that they’d make it at all.
The Motive
They went because of the good possibility of big profit. A region rich with silver, furs, and livestock awaited you. Also, it provided a peek into a culture foreign to most and the lure of the reputations of brown-eyed Spanish women. The greater the reward, the more men willingly endured the journey.
The same is true in the spiritual realm.
Seeking Spiritual Rewards
All around the country I find men who get turned off by the thought of embracing Christianity. That’s because they have no idea of the wealth of the rewards. Oh, most understand that faith in Christ offers eternal life, but few grasp that heaven is Jesus’ home.
He has gone there to get this place ready for us, leaving us a trail to follow. Few realize that those who do not follow this path will be sent to an eternal dwelling place not nearly as comfortable.
More Daily Benefits Than Santa Fe
I’ve found many who also don’t have the slightest notion that the Christian faith offers constant benefits on a daily basis to all who believe, long before we get to heaven.
Jesus said that He has come “that they might have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).
That means a daily life crammed with purpose, meaning, and satisfaction, as well as adventure and excitement. Now, that’s something worth aiming for. It’s more valuable than the riches at the end of the Santa Fe Trail, and a whole lot closer than a rugged month away.
Stephen Bly
Circa 1996
Bent’s Fort of Old Santa Fe Trail Image by Mike Goad from Pixabay
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WESTERN WISDOM “Santa Fe Trail” audio podcast by award-winning western author Stephen Bly. Sponsored by BlyBooks.com Legacy Series.
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