Q 01/05

Which future frontier scout ran away from a Missouri saddle shop at 16 to join a caravan on the Santa Fe Trail?

A) Jim Bridger

B) Kit Carson

C) Wyatt Earp

D) Wild Bill Hickok

Answer · why

B) Kit Carson

Kit Carson's master advertised a reward of just one cent for the runaway apprentice, and no one ever claimed it.

Q 02/05

Stretches of the Santa Fe Trail were later absorbed into which famous American highway of the motor age?

A) Lincoln Highway

B) Dixie Highway

C) Route 66

D) Lee Highway

Answer · why

C) Route 66

Route 66 took over stretches of the National Old Trails Road, an early ocean-to-ocean auto road that had followed the old wagon ruts across the West.

Q 03/05

Which actor played George Armstrong Custer alongside Errol Flynn in the 1940 Hollywood film Santa Fe Trail?

A) Ronald Reagan

B) John Wayne

C) Randolph Scott

D) Henry Fonda

Answer · why

A) Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan's Custer is shown, fictionally, as a West Point classmate of Flynn's Jeb Stuart. The film ranked among the higher-grossing releases of i...

Q 04/05

The name of Santa Fe, the old capital where the Santa Fe Trail ended, translates into English as what?

A) Holy Cross

B) Saint Francis

C) Sacred Heart

D) Holy Faith

Answer · why

D) Holy Faith

Holy Faith is short for a far longer original name: the Royal Town of the Holy Faith of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Q 05/05

What reached Santa Fe in February 1880 and ended the Santa Fe Trail's long career as a commercial highway?

A) The telegraph

B) The railroad

C) A stagecoach line

D) A paved highway

Answer · why

B) The railroad

The railroad made the long wagon haul pointless, and the trail faded into history. The tracks had already crested the mountains on the Colorado line i...