Tom Jonas – Kearney’s Trail from Santa Fe to Arizona

$10.00

Tom Jonas is a trail researcher and cartographer in Phoenix, Arizona, who also enjoys doing “then and now” photography (pairing vintage historical images with modern photographs).

In the fall of 1846, General Stephen Watts Kearny led a column of Dragoons to what was then the Mexican province of Alta California to seize it for the United States. The chosen route was the Gila River Trail, a route seldom used except by occasional parties of fur trappers.

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Tom Jonas is a trail researcher and cartographer in Phoenix, Arizona, who also enjoys doing “then and now” photography (pairing vintage historical images with modern photographs).

In the fall of 1846, General Stephen Watts Kearny led a column of Dragoons to what was then the Mexican province of Alta California to seize it for the United States. The chosen route was the Gila River Trail, a route seldom used except by occasional parties of fur trappers.

Almost as important as Kearny’s mission to conquer California was the mapping and scientific study of a huge tract of the country previously considered Tierra Incognita. The official report of Kearny’s Topographical Engineer, Lt. William H. Emory, was soon repurposed as an emigrant trail guide for California-bound gold-seekers using The Gila Trail and its alternate, Cooke’s Wagon Road.

This presentation will explain the route through New Mexico, Arizona, and California and show images from the official report that have helped trail researchers locate obscure portions of the trail.

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