Old Spanish Trail

noun

, American History.

1. an overland route from Santa Fe, N. Mex., to Los Angeles, Calif., first marked out in 1776 by Spanish explorers and missionaries.

Example Sentences

In October 1849, members of trail leader Jefferson Hunt’s Mojave San Joaquin Company wagon train grew impatient with Hunt’s pace and his preferred route, known as the Old Spanish Trail.

From National Geographic

They briefly convinced Hunt to try an alternative route, but Hunt returned from a reconnaissance mission nearly dead of thirst and told them he’d keep to the Old Spanish Trail.

From National Geographic

“You can see some of the old dwellings, and parts of the Old Spanish Trail are accessible now. It’s an opportunity, but it just depends on the person’s frame of mind.”

From Seattle Times

For Nancy Melendez, a sixth-generation descendant of Trujillo Adobe founder Lorenzo Trujillo, who was a Genízaro — one of many Native Americans sometimes taken captive and raised by Spanish colonists — and guided families along the Old Spanish Trail to California, recognition by the National Trust represents validation.

From Los Angeles Times

The bill also designates 375,500 acres of new wilderness in the southern California desert, which is a critical ecosystem for bighorn sheep and desert tortoise and the setting for thousands of years of cultural history, including the Old Spanish Trail, a historic trade route that linked northern New Mexico to Los Angeles.

From The Guardian