Mail, freight, and passengers traveled by horse and wagon along this road across the Edwards Plateau and dangerous Trans-Pecos region of West Texas.
Hays and a squad of Texas Rangers spent three and a half months on their quest, but only made it as far as Presidio due to lack of food and water.
Brevet Brigadier General William S. Harney, commanding the Army in Texas after General Worth's death in the San Antonio cholera epidemic, ordered Lieutenant Smith to accompany Lieutenant Colonel Joseph E. Johnston on another survey expedition to El Paso.
[2] One of these Forty-niners, Robert Eccleston, wrote a journal describing incidents of the journey and the land they passed over, with the mileage, each day along the route.
"In 1850, the largest supply train to use the road" left Fort Inge for El Paso with 340 wagons, 4000 animals, 450 civilians, and 175 soldiers.