THE SANTA FE TRADERS. by way of the AguaFria, Rayado Lodge, Bonita Valley, and Crater Lake.

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3 turned with a favorable report. At once the viceroy commissioned Francisco Coronado to lead an expedition of 400 men to capture the city. So came the conquistadores (conquerors) to the Southwest, and to the vast region where Philmont lies today. Did they find Cibola and its gold? The great Seven Cities proved to be nothing more than the ancient adobe pueblos of Zufii, New Mexico. Even in failing, however, Coronado had performed a great service for his country. His explorations, extending to the Great Plains area and almost to the Mississippi River, secured Spain's hold on the Southwest for more than three centuries. In 1j98, one Juan Ofiate was sent from Mexico to Santa Fe and Taos to establish the first permanent Spanish settlements in the western foothills of the Sangre de Cristos - in whose eastern shadows Philmont Explorers camp today. O.iate subdued the centuries-old Pueblo Indian tribes and then was free to make treaties with the Navajo Indians who lived west of the Rio Grande (Big River) and the Apache-Comanche Indians east of the Sangre de Cristos (Blood of Christ) Mountains. No horses existed in the Americas, before the white man came. nor did its native population use the wheel for transportation. When the Indian secured horses from the Spaniards it changed him from a foot soldier to a cavalryman, to the regret of the white men who were to spend several generations battling mounted red men. The conquistadores were soldiers and searchers of gold-not colonists. They settled hack in a feudal life based on Pueblo Indian peonage- a form of slavery. The uneasy calm that followed was not ruptured until 1680, when the Pueblos and their Indian allies launched a major rebellion. De Vargas crushed this serious Pueblo effort to drive out the hated Spaniards, and by 1692 had reconquered New Mexico for the Spanish crown. The end of the Pueblo revolution, however, marked the close of an important chapter in American history - the Spanish advance into the Southwest was over. THE AMERICAN PIONEER Elsewhere, other men- later to leave their stamp on the Southwest - were stirring far beyond the sea of grass stretching eastward from the Sangre de Crisros. These were the English, the French and the colonists of other nations striving for a foothold along the eastern seaboard. Out of this struggle for land, for homes, for political and religious freedom, came a new kind of man. With visions of a new world, he combined the colonizing urge of the European with a lust for freedom almost Indian in nature-as expressed by Patrick Henry-"Give me liberty or give me death." This was the American pioneer. Unlike the Indian, however, he carved farms and plantations out of the wilderness, and began the development of natural resources, and established industrial plants to service later developments wes:- ward-including the Santa Fe Trail trade with the Mexican settlements of the Southwest. Just 156 years after the landing of the Pilgrims, in New England, and the settlement of Jamestown, in Virginia, these pioneer Americans produced the Declaration of Independence, established a democracy and won it on the battlefield. An echo of this form of government was heard around the world and was effective in inspiring the Spanish colonists of Central and South America to win their own independence and establish similar democracies. The American pioneer was now on his own, and a mighty continent to the west lay before him.

4 THE SANTA FE TRADERS THE AMERICAN FRONTIERSMAN Ever restless, ever westward, the adventurous types of these pioneer Americans, like Daniel Boone, crossed the Alleghenies and settled on the rich, free farm land east of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. These were the real frontiersmen because they fought and pushed the Indian before them and faced the Spanish who claimed the land between the great central rivers and the Rocky Mountains. From these farm lands a new crop of western adventurers was born ro conquer the plains and mountains of the West and Southwest. Soon the Spanish realized hey were uucnumbered by these hardy frontiersmen and that this great region- called the ~ouisiana Territory -was slipping from their weakening hold, and they knew they must act swiftly. They did. They sold this Louisiana Territory to Napoleon of France, who soon resold it to the United States in For fifteen million dollars the young American nation gained a new empire, and a foothold on its destiny as a continental power. After the Louisiana Territory purchase, President Thomas Jefferson sent out the Lewis and Clark Expedition to explore these new lands by way of the "Wide Missouri." Aided by the Shoshone woman guide-sacajawea- the expedition continued on to cross the Continental Divide into neutral territory and reached the Pacific Ocean by way of the Columbia River. This opened for American settlement the Oregon Territory which resulted in the encirclement of the Spanish settlements in the Southwest. During the time when our Southwest country was owned by Spain and ruled by the viceroy of Mexico the Spanish feared a repetition of the American frontiersman's aggressiveness experienced in the Louisiana Territory, and therefore prohibited frontiersmen from setting foot on their lands. Even Lieutenant Pike, of Pikes Peak fame, was arrested in Taos and 'taken to Mexico for trial as a trespasser on Spanish soil. After rhe Mexico revolution, in 182 1, Mexico became an independent nation and, under its more friendly government, American frontiersmen were permitted to enter and trade with Mexican citizens but not welcomed as landholders in the New Mexican settlements around Santa Fe. Prom ancient times the Pueblo Indians crossed the Sangre de Cristos to hunt buffalo and antelope in the Apache-Comanche plains country. Their route was called the Taos Trail and it crossed Philmont by way of the AguaFria, Rayado Lodge, Bonita Valley, and Crater Lake. All the old-time scouts used this trail in crossing these mountains, and Explorers will find, even today, the large blazes on pine trees that marked it. Fowler Pass, above Crater Lake, was named for Jacob Fowler, who returned that way in 1821 after a trip of exploration into the New Mexico country. The Santa Fe Trail was booming. Previously manufactured goods available to the New Mexican settlers came from Europe, by a roundabout route through Mexico City and the Chihuahua Trail to Santa Fe. Now, coming by railroad to St. Louis and water transportation to Westport Landing and Independence, Missouri, American factory products could reach a ready market at Santa Fe. This estab. lished an important chapter in American history, and was a forerunner of our famous acquisition of the Southwest country. This famous Santa Fe Trail canw by the way of Uncle Dick Wooten's Raton Pass, through Cimarron, Rayado, to cross what is now the Philmont Scout Ranch, and on to Fort Union and Santa Fe. Even today the deep ruts of its coach trail can be found in the foothills below the hulking shadow of the Tooth of Time.

5 THE BUFFALO HUNTERS During the Santa Fe Trail period, which continued to flourish until a western railroad was started to serve Santa Fe, the trail men and frontiersmen encountered considernble conflict with the Plains Indian tribes - caused mostly by the white man's encroachment on the Indian's long-time hunting grounds. This also mnde hazardous the operation of the pony express and passenger stagecozch travel to the Southwest and the Pacific Coast. This conflict was enlarged when the railroads came and a wasteful and ruthless slaughter began of the vast herds of buffalo that grazed on the lush prairie land and, like other game animals, migrated to and from their summer and winter pastures. The cost to the government in building forts to protect the settlers, plus the feeding of the nomad Indian tribes who followed the buffalo herds and depended on them for food, clothing, and shcltcr, grcatly cxcccdcd thc valuc of products made from the slaughtered buffalos, which consisted mostly of buffalo robes. The only other benefit received from this unnecessary slaughter was the use of huffalo meat by the trailmen, soldiers, and railroad construction crews. The celebrated Buffalo Bill Was hired by the railroad company as a hunter to supply buffalo meat to their crews. The result of this depletion of buffalo brought about a new relationship between the white and the red men in the Great Plains area. It made way for the farmers and ranchers but it also forced the government to provide for the Indians. From this time on the native Indian population became wards of our government. Ultimately the new Territory of Oklahoma was set aside for many of the Indian tribes east of the Rocky Mountains, and reservations were established there for their own exclusive use. This brought to a close, in this region, the Indian's "Happy Hunting Ground." THE MOUNTAIN SCOUTS Simultaneously with the development of the Louisiana Purchase, the Santa Fe Trail traffic, and the Buffalo Hunters, the fur trade flourished in eastern and European markets. And from this fur trade, mostly in beaver pelts, emerged the most colorful men of Western history -the trappers, the pathfinders, the trail blazers, the mountain men. Indian-wise in the secret ways of the wilderness, able to weather hardships that would fell lesser men, the mountain men developed a hardiness, a self-reliance, that few others have equaled. The debt we owe them for their part in opening up the West is a great one. The mountain man most closely connected with this Philmont story and from the standpoint of courage, scouting, marksmanship, and dependability was the greatest of them all. KIT CARSON Christopher "Kit" Carson was born in Madison County, Kentucky, on December 24, 1809, but as an infant moved with his parents to a farm in Howard County, Missouri, and at 1I was apprenticed to a saddlemaker in the town of Franklin on the Missouri River. Being an adventurous lad, he yearned early for mountain life and finally secured a job with a wealthy Santa Fe Trail trader named Charles Bent, co-owner, with his brother William and Ceran St. Vrain, of the famous Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River near the foothilir of the Sangre de Cristos. Soon he was on his way to the "Shining Mountains." Young Kit and Bent became close friends for life and finally married Spanish sisters of the Jaramillo family of Taos. In later years Charles Bent became the first territorial governor of New Mexico and was killed in the second rebellion by the Pueblo Indians at his home in Taos. Back in Missouri, meantime, a young Army lieutenant named John C. Fremont - son-in-law of the prominent Missouri Senator, Thomas Hart Benton- was preparing for the first of his useful expeditions to the West. With Benton's influence hacking him, Fremont planned to map the trails and passes across the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas. His findings would be published to advertise the new land Benton visioned the United States should have to complete its land mass from the Atlantic to the Pacific. There were well-

6 Restorcd by E.xjloi-ers, who inad,, ihc nilohc bricks f~vm mtive nzutel-ids, fhc Kit Carson home now stands as it stood when oviginall>r built by the famozrs scozrt. In the museum can be jound many interesting articles showitzg the early history of the Soathwest.

7 founded rumors in Washington that foreign powers were planning to seize California, and it was known that New Mexico citizens were restless and dissatisfied with their appointed governors from faraway Mexico City. Fremont learned of Kit's familiarity with the mountain cou~ltry of the West and hired him as his guide. When Fremont published the journal of his first expedition, Kit Carson became a national hero. Several other Fremont expeditions were made with Kit always as his guide. The last one, by way of Oregon with a battalion of troops, was to California, with which country Kit was familiar. This expedition resulted in California's surrender by the Mexican government. Then followed the much easier New Mexico surrender in connection with the Mexican War, and Senator Benton's dream came true. General Sam Houston conquered Texas at the battle of San Jacinto. Fremont conquered California, and these became independent republics - both of which, however, soon joined our union of states. Houston seemed to have done his job without special pidance, but Fremont needed the help of Kit Carson to get his job done. After the Mexican War, in 1846, Fremont - called the West's greatest explorer- became a noted statesman and general in the service of his country. Carson, after a limited experience in "settling down" with his friend Maxwell on the Rayado -referred to in a later chapter titled "Lucien B. Maxwell"-re-entered government service as an Army officer and as an Indian agent at Taos. Kit Carson's full and useful life came to an end in 1868 at Ft. Lyons, Culorado, and his grave is at Taos, New Mexico. The days of the mountail1 men were over in the land around the Tooth of Time. THE MEXICAN LAND GRANTS Under Spanish rule land grants were given to Spanish citizens in an area extending from the Texas Gulf through northern New Mexico and southern Colorado to California. This was to protect their lands in the southwest from American encroachment. After Mexico's independence she made additional land grants and allowed the Spanish grants to be confirmed under their law which restricted one individual to 48,000 acres. In 1841 a grant of 96,000 acres was made to Carlos Beaubien, of Taos, and Guadalupe Miranda, of old Mexico, for the purpose of colonizing it with Mexican citizens. This Beaubien- f i, Miranda grant took in a wide swath of prairie and mountain land on the east side of the Sangre de Crirtos on each side of the Santa Fe Trail. In the meantime the U. S. government took possession, in 1846, but followed the same rule. In a U. S. government survey, however, it was found, by the rather vague descriptions of old boundary markers, that it contained more than 1,700,000 acres. This caused litigation, so plus conflicts with previous settlers, the grant was not confirmed until 1860 and was renamed the Maxwell Land Grant. LUCIEN B. MAXWELL Lucien B. Maxwell was born in the prairie state of Illinois near the village of Kaskaskia on September 14, Like his friend Kit Carson he heeded the advice of Horace Greeley -"Go west, young man, go west" - and as trail man, scout, trapper - including two trips with Fremont- he arrived in Taos in In 1844 he married Luz Beaubien, daughter of Carlos Beaubien, co-owner of the Beaubien-Miranda land grant. Long hoping to own some of the Southwest lands he had roamed as a mountain man, Maxwell, througb his marriage, would soon come into possession of some of the most valuable land in the Southwest. After Maxwell's marriage he bought Miranda's share of the grant and established the first settlement on the eastern slope of the Sangre de Cristos on the Rayado River. Before long he had inherited or bought the remainder of the grant. Maxwell was now an American land baron- the largest individual land owner in North America. On this Rayado location Maxwell built a massive ranch home of Spanish hollow square design, with surrounding adobe buildings, and established a settlement to colonize his land holdings. To protect this settlement from raids by the Apache and Comanche Indians, the U. S. government, after the American occupation in 1846, built an adobe fort a short distance down the Rayado from his headfi quarters and stationed a troop of dragoons (cavalrymen) there for that purpose. Learning that his old friend Kit Carson was seeking a, place to build a home, Maxwell invited Kit Carson to join him on the Rayado. Kit accepted. He built a fort-like adobe house near Maxwell's headquarters and for a few years served as a game hunter to provide provisions for the Maxwell settlement and the soldiers of

8 Fort Rayado. There Kit Carson's restless feet found the nearest to what he could ever call home. A part of Maxwell's ranch house on the Rayado and the adobe home of Carson, restored by the Boy Scouts of America and used as a museum to display New Mexican antiques, including St. Vrain's Santa Fe freight wagon, still stands for Boy Scouts to observe near the southeast corner of Philmont Scout Ranch. Several prominent citizens of New Mexico helped to get the enlarged grant confirmed, including Stephen Benton Elkins, Thomas Benton Catron and Stephen W. Dorsey, whose pictures among others hang in the Carson Museum of Philmont. Both Elkins and Catron later became United States senators like their namesake Senator Benton. Dorsey had previously served as senator from Arkansas. During this process of litigation various land tracts, mineral rights and timber interests were disposed of which later on proved valuable to the amount of many million dollars, including the gold mming at Elizahethtown, on the flanks of the Baldy Mountain, and the immense coal mining operations around Ratou. Maxwell's chief interest lay in ranching operations. To secure a more centralized location he disposed of a 30,000-acre tract of land on the Rayado to his brother-in-law, Don Jesus Abreau- also married to one of the Beauhien daughters - and established his headquarters at Cimarron. There he lived in lavish feudal style, astride the Santa Fe Trail. Among his many ranch enterprises he established a stone building flour mill, across the road from his ranch headquarters, and furnished cattle for slaughter to the Ute Indians who were being fed by the U. S. government at Ute Park. On account of the many conflicts involving land titles, timber and mining operations, Maxwell sold, in 1869, his remaining interest in the land grant for $650,000. It was immediately resold to an English syndicate for double that amount. Then he purchased the reservation surrounding the abandoned U. S. Fort Sumner in the prairie country about 171 miles southeast of Cimarron. There he lived until his death in Recorded hisrory relates, however, that he was unhappy in this new environment and always hoped to return to the foothills, canyon and mountain country of his old domain, surrounding Cimarron, where Philmont Scout Ranch lies, and where Explorers camp today. t fi THE ANGLO RANCHERS After the large New Mexican land grants were subdivided and sold to individual ranchers, most of the lands were acquired by Anglo people- a name applied to the western American frontiersmen in contrast to the Spanish-American inhabitants of that region-and thriving operations of farming and livestock were developed. Such operations were concurrent with the development of natural resources, principally coal and timber, on this former Maxwell Land Grant property. The pioneers of the cattle industry in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain areas were mostly Englishmen, but they were soon succeeded by these Anglo-Americans. Thus a new type of man came to the Tooth of Time country - the land of maaana (tomorrow)- where changes occur slowly by the decree of Mother Nature. WAITE PHILLIPS Waite Phillips was born on a small farm, in 1883, in southwestern Iowa near the village of Conway, of typical frontier parents. His father, a Civil War veteran, was both a farmer and master carpenter, and his mother was most capable in managing a large family. Endowed with an inherent love of nature, Phillips' boyhood interests lay in hunting and trapping small game animals along the creeks in that country. While working in farm duties, a full public education was secured and then, with other brothers to take their place in farm work, he and his identical twin, Wiate, at the age of 17 started westward - like Carson and Maxwell -toward the "Shining Mountains." In 1900 our Western conntry was expanding rapidly in railroad building, mining, and lumber operations, so the twin boys found plenty of work to do in those lines. In addition they spent one winter trapping fur animals in the Bitterroot Mountains. When his twin brother died in 1902 of appendicitis, Phillips returned to his home in Iowa and, after a short college course, he launched into an active business career. Like Maxwell, however, he always hoped to acquire Western land and that thought finally resulted in the purchase of Philmont Ranch. This business experience, under the guidance and help of his elder brothers, Frank and L. E., moved swiftly from a short period of coal mining in Iowa to oil operations, in 1906, in that infant midcontinent industry centered around Bartlesville, Oklahoma. He claims

9 his "best deal" was made in 1909 by marrying Genevieve Elliott at Knoxville, Iowa. Then in 1914 he sold his oil interest to these elder brothers and started out on his own as an individual oil producer, refiner, and marketer. His fully integrated and extensive oil operations totaled almost 40 years with headquarters, after 1918, at Tulsa, Oklahoma. In addition to this oil business Phillips was actively engaged in banking, city real estate developments and the operation of his ranches in the Rocky Mountain regions. His choice of these, however, was Philmont, acquired in After disposing of the others this 300,000-acre unit was developed, from a business standpoint, for diversified farming and livestock operations. After building a summer house, mountain trails, hunting and fishing lodges, he found it a restful retreat from business pressures in Tulsa. Often Phillips would wonder how he could share with others the peace, the rugged beauty, the inspiration of Philmont. He, his wife, son and daughter loved the prairies, the foothills, the canyon streams, the spruce, the pine, and aspen-clad mountains. Especially interesting were the friendly wild mountain animals, the game birds, the wild horse herd in Buck Creek, and the volcanic crater half eroded in Rayado Canyon. He realized that a mountain environmentan intimate contact with nature - develops self-reliance, physical stamina, good moral character. Knowing the Boy Scouts of America, National Council, had an expert staff for training great numbers of young Americans in camping, in outdoor life, in character and citizenship, he gave them, without solicitation, the most scenic, best improved, central portion of Philmont, for the benefit of Boy Scouts and their volunteer leaders. In this way "the many" rather thxn "the few" could enjoy and profit by its use in the future. So it was that in 1938 and in 1941 the Boy Scouts received gifts from Waite Phillips of 127,000 acres of Philmont complete with water, mineral and timber righrs and, as an endowment, the 23-story Philtower Building in Tulsa. This was done without any rights of management reserved by the donor. All equipment and livestock was included in the gift with the idea that diversified ranch operations would add educational benefits to Boy Scouts and would also add to the endowment income. The land of the conquistadores, the frontiersmen, the mountain scouts, the explorers of another century, now became the "University of the Great Outdoors" for the explorers of a modern age The beautiful Villa Philmonte, former home of Mr. Phillips, included the area from the rotunda in the center of the picture to the left. The buildings to the right of the rotunda were built by the National Council, Boy Scouts of America, and now serve as part of the adult training center which each year trains thousands of men who bring their families and have a combination vacation-training experience.

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