Watrous: Where the Santa Fe Trail Forked

Watrous, New Mexico sits at the confluence of the Mora and Sapello rivers, and for fifty years that geography made it one of the most important supply stops on the Santa Fe Trail. Travelers called it La Junta, Spanish for the junction, because it was where the Cimarron Cutoff and the Mountain Branch of the trail reunited before the final push to Santa Fe. Samuel Watrous arrived here around eighteen forty-nine and built a trading ranch, a store, and an adobe fortification that served as a way station, mercantile hub, and sometime refuge for freighters hauling goods between Missouri and New Mexico.

When the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway arrived in the early eighteen eighties, it bypassed the old trail entirely. Watrous shrank to almost nothing. The site is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and preserves some of the most intact Santa Fe Trail ruts and structures remaining in New Mexico.