The supreme authority on the Santa Fe Trail and the trade developed over it is The Commerce of the Prairies, by Dr. Josiah Gregg. It is the foundation of every work on the subject since its appearance. It was published in 1844 in New York, and London. Dr. Gregg was born in Overton County, Tennessee, July 19, 1806. His father moved to Missouri in time to have his family interned in the blockhouse in Boone’s Lick settlement in the war of 1812. After that war he settled in Jackson County, Missouri, just north of Independence, where he grew up, as he says, “on the frontier.” He was far above the ordinary in intelligence. He graduated from the Philadelphia Medical College. and was a successful physician until his health failed. Then he took to the Plains, making eight trips from Independence to Santa Fe and beyondsometimes to Chihuahua. For a biographical sketch of Dr. Gregg, see pages 162 et seq Connelley’s Doniphan’s Expedition.
The American Fur Trade of the Far West, by H. M. Chittenden, New York, Francis P. Harper, 1902. This work had much concerning the Santa Fe Trail.
Doniphan’s Expedition, by John T. Hughes, is a work which had much about the Santa Fe Trail. The edition edited by Connelley contains many valuable notes, portraits, and biographies.
There are many documents, clippings, minor works, and articles on the Santa Fe Trail in the Library of the Kansas State Historical Society.