The Old Santa Fe Trail by Stanley Vestal

The Old Santa Fe Trail by Stanley Vestal

'What is distinctive in Vestal's account is the admirable reconstruction of the facts and feelings of the life of the trail. To read his book is to realize that life as vividly as if you had seen it in a movie...Obviously, he loves the Trail and knows it as well as one knows one's own sidewalk. His enthusiasm makes his knowledge infectious' - "New York Times". 'Anecdotal history at its best, history come to life...This is the way people lived along the trail' - "Christian Science Monitor".The Santa Fe Trail was one of the two great overland highways originating in Missouri in the nineteenth century. Several decades before settlers streamed over the Oregon Trail, traders were heading southwest. The caravans carried the wares of Yankee commerce; they returned loaded with buffalo robes and beaver pelts and the rich metals of Mexican mines. The thousand-mile journey 'was a perilous cruise across a boundless sea of grass, over forbidding mountains, among wild beasts and wilder men, ending in an exotic city offering quick riches, friendly foreign women, and a moral holiday', writes Stanley Vestal.Vestal begins where the trail does. He describes outfitting for the trip, the society formed for survival, the hunt for meat, landmarks, and the dangers. He evokes the history and legends surrounding the trail at every point, including figures like Kit Carson, Jedediah Smith, the Bent brothers, and Uncle Dick Wooton. Stanley Vestal's fame rests on such reliable and entertaining books as "Jim Bridger: Mountain Man" and "Joe Meek: The Merry Mountain Man", available as Bison Books. Marc Simmons is an authority on the Santa Fe Trail and the author of numerous books including "Witchcraft in the Southwest: Spanish and Indian Supernaturalism on the Rio Grande", also available as a Bison Book.

Vestal, Stanley: -

Stanley Vestal is the pen name of Walter S. Campbell, who up grew up in Southern Cheyenne country. A graduate of Oxford University and longtime Professor of English at the University of Oklahoma, he wrote many distinguished books on American Indians and the West, including Sitting Bull, Champion of the Sioux.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780803296152
ISBN 10	0803296150
Title	The Old Santa Fe Trail
Author	Stanley Vestal
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	University of Nebraska Press
Year published	1996-05-01
Number of pages	304
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable