The great plains; the romance of western American exploration, warfare, and settlement, 1527-1870 . West is be-yond computation. The work of the muleteer be-came almost an art, and there were few regions soisolated, either in mountain or plain, as to remainlong unvisited by the pack-train. The distancetravelled, and the value of merchandise and specietransported in this manner, are beyond estimate. Inthe early history of the Southwest there were ordi-nary commercial routes, regularly travelled over,more than fifteen hundred miles long. In 1774Captain Anza took such a train from Sonora to SanFr
The great plains; the romance of western American exploration, warfare, and settlement, 1527-1870 . West is be-yond computation. The work of the muleteer be-came almost an art, and there were few regions soisolated, either in mountain or plain, as to remainlong unvisited by the pack-train. The distancetravelled, and the value of merchandise and specietransported in this manner, are beyond estimate. Inthe early history of the Southwest there were ordi-nary commercial routes, regularly travelled over,more than fifteen hundred miles long. In 1774Captain Anza took such a train from Sonora to SanFrancisco, and Coronado wandered the Plainsnearly two years, a pack-train bearing his the old Vera Cruz Trail it is said that seventythousand mules were employed each year, the com-merce carried on their backs reaching yearly a totalof sixty-four million dollars. In those days every-thing went mule-back, the only concession made totravellers unable to ride in this way being a rudelitter on shafts swung to the saddles of two muleswalking in single file. Regular commercial routes, [132]. EARLY TRANSPORTATION over which the pack-mules travelled in long col-umns, were early established between Mexico andthe border Spanish settlements along the Rockies,and thus was the pack-train introduced upon thePlains. As early, possibly, as the beginning of the sev-enteenth century the first wheeled vehicle made itsappearance in this neighborhood, but was probablynever used on the Plains outside New Mexico. Thiswas the carreta, built without nails or a scrap ofiron, being a rude ox-cart, so heavy that no othermotive power could pull it. It had two wheels,made from three sections of Cottonwood logs, fast-ened to a wooden axle, and without tires. Somecarretas were still in use within the memory of liv-ing men; their creaking and groaning while inmotion imparted to the traveller a sensation neverto be forgotten. The first wheeled vehicles everused within the limits of what is now the Uni
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Keywords: ., boo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookpublisherchicagomcclurg
