When first opened to traffic in 1821, the Santa Fe Trail linked the American markets along the Missouri River with the long-established Mexican trade center of Santa Fe, New Mexico. The culturally diverse points supported a commercial road that not only connected those two nations, but also crossed the sovereign lands of the Kansa, Osage and other tribes. The ethnic and landscape diversity of the early 19th century remains pronounced in the early 21st century. In Santa Fe the soft sounds of S
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