Santa Fe Trail Net"ALL READY" FOR SFTNet"The Santa Fe Trail lives on!" Welcome to SFTNet, the latest manifestation of the Santa Fe Trail saga. This service is designed for trail enthusiasts, students, researchers, travelers on the trail, in short, anyone interested in historical or contemporary developments along the Santa Fe Trail. What is the Trail from Santa Fe? As many who read this introduction know, the Santa Fe Trail is an ancient land route between the desert southwest of what is now the United States and the prairies and plains of central America. 'North America. In the southwest, it was also part of a longer route that went down the Rio Grande to what is now northern Mexico. Native American peoples used the route to trade the agricultural products of the Rio Grande Valley and the riches of the plains, such as dried buffalo meat and buffalo hides. When the Spanish conquistador Onate arrived in New Mexico in 1598, he and his soldiers followed this ancient route as they explored the plains and traded with the peoples of the region. Over the next two centuries, the Spanish gained extensive knowledge of the plains and routes connecting the Mississippi-Missouri river systems and the Southwest. Then, in 1821, a Missouri trader, William Becknell, arrived in Santa Fe on what would become the historic Santa Fe Trail. He opened the Santa Fe Trail as a trade route between what was then ...