Old Spanish Trail near Las Vegas gets ‘overdue’ recognition

Friday, Oct. 5, 2001 | 4:28 a.m.

Though it's a long, thirsty walk from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, horse thieves, slavers, traders and explorers took on the task more than 150 years ago.

They plodded for months along the Old Spanish Trail that for two decades was the only plausible route for moving commerce between Sante Fe, N.M., and Los Angeles.

In August three segments of the trail that ran through Southern Nevada were placed on the National Register of Historic Places, marking the trail's historical significance.

"It's very long overdue," said Hal Steiner, president of the Old Spanish Trail Association, who has been interested in the trail for 25 years and wrote about it "The Old Spanish Trail Across the Mojave Desert" (the Haldor Company, 1999).

The Old Spanish Trail weaves through parts of Colorado, Utah, Nevada, Arizona and California. Its history dates back to the 1700s when Spaniards, Catholic missionaries and American Indians traveled the route.

In 1829 Sante Fe merchant Antonio Armijo led a caravan of traders on the trail from Sante Fe to Los Angeles, inspiring semiannual caravans traveling between Los Angeles and Sante Fe.

New Mexico had rich supplies of wool, and California had horses and mules, Steiner said. "Each one needed what the other had. They carried on a trade, and it was very active."

In 1844 explorer John C. Fremont traveled the trail and mapped a route that was published and widely distributed, drawing national attention to the trail. Three years later Mormons traveled the trail by wagon from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Portions of the wagon road became known as the Mormon Road.

But as wagon travel and railroads became the more popular means of traveling, activity on the trail ceased.

The trail wriggled northeast to southwest through Southern Nevada, and there are still some roughly intact portions of the trail in Southern Nevada, said Terri McBride, historic preservation specialist and archaeologist for the state Historic Preservation Office.

McBride last summer began her research and field work on the trail to present it to the National Register of Historic Places.

Before the trail could be considered historic, McBride needed to present properties that still have some physical resemblance to their natural state.

But workers had their work cut out for them. Much of the Old Spanish Trail featured on historical maps no longer exists, McBride said. A lot of the trail running through Las Vegas had been obliterated by development, she added.

"(But) we found several intact segments outside of the Las Vegas Valley in Clark County," she said.

The three sections of the trail that are listed in the National Register of Historic Places are at least 200 meters long and can be found near the Arizona border (near the Virgin River); just outside of Blue Diamond west of Las Vegas, and a third at Stump Springs, near Sandy Valley.

Though the recently registered trails are on public land, historians and archaeologists are reluctant to offer maps to their exact locations in an effort to ward off any artifact hunters.

McBride suggests that hikers and explorers who want to gain access to the trail contact the Bureau of Land Management office on West Vegas Drive at 647-5000.

"The Old Spanish Trail is very important to Las Vegas," McBride, said. "If the trail didn't stop at the Springs in Las Vegas (near the area of Alta Drive and Valley View Boulevard) we wouldn't have the same kind of settlement we have today."

As to why the trail had not been registered sooner, McBride said, "There has been lot of public support for somehow memorializing this trail. There had been some efforts by federal agencies (to see it registered), but nothing had solidified yet."

McBride said there is a very short segment of the Old Spanish Trail in North Las Vegas, and that there has been talk about incorporating the trail into an open space with a sign to commemorate it.

Blue Diamond has a marker acknowledging an area where the trail once passed through, and in 1964 volunteers erected Old Spanish Trail markers outside of Las Vegas.

"They're not always accurate," McBride said, referring to the markers placed by volunteers. "But it gives a person a feel to what it was like to walk around the trail.

"There are some really beautiful locations that give you a real, almost lonely feeling of being out there and walking to Las Vegas. It's beautiful, almost mind-boggling."