A Trail of Many Tales

Whether four-legged animals or two-legged humans, trails are followed and retraced by an assortment of creatures through the centuries on the easiest paths through the landscape. They were always on some type of mission whether looking for forage, food, water or ports of call. Humans, from the 16th through the 19st centuries are most always on some military or commercial enterprise between destination points. The Old Spanish Trail was used for both purposes: Spanish traders from at least 1795 to the railroad surveys of the early-1850s. Commercially, hundreds of mules left Santa Fe carrying woolen goods for the Californios. In return, thousands of horses and mules were herded back to New Mexico and then up the Santa Fe trail to Middle America. Trail of Many Tales relates the history of the trail in south central Utah by combining first hand accounts, tribal lore, works of history, archaeology and state of the art scientific methods. Come on along and learn how large groups of animals were herded by not so many men and the identification of their trails, some 1,000 feet wide, that still can be isolated on small sections of the overland route.

Bob Leonard was born into a military family and had the opportunity to travel the world from Heidelberg, Germany to Ft. Carson, Colorado and became a history buff at the side of his dad, a U.S. Army officer. Trips to Pompeii, Rome, Stonehenge and the like were vacations during the family’s six year tour of duty in Europe. Bob attended Clarke Memorial College, Louisiana College and Colorado State University between 1968 and 1975 majoring in history, anthropology and archaeology. At Colorado State, Bob found and excavated the long-lost ice house at Bent’s Old Fort on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail. After graduate school, he became a Park Ranger at Mesa Verde NP in Colorado. In 1980, he accepted the Forest Archaeologist position on the Fishlake NF in south central Utah. During his 40 year career, Bob was named the Intermountain Region Archaeologist of the Year twice, received the National Interpreter of the Year award, was given the Citizen of the Year Award by Utah State Parks and was the recipient of a Certificate of Merit for his work on the Old Spanish Trail. Bob retired from the Forest Service in 2017 and now lives in Marysvale Utah, a stone’s throw from the Old Spanish Trail.