What was the impact of the construction of railroads on the use of the Santa Fe Trail in the 1880s?
The construction of railroads boosted the use of the Santa Fe Trail by traders.
American tourists from eastern parts of the country who wanted to see the West used the Santa Fe
Trail.
The Santa Fe Trail was no longer valued as a major highway for the transportation of goods and
peoples between the western and eastern portions of the United States.
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Explanation:
When Captain William Becknell traveled the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, he inaugurated a sixty-year period
of travel and commerce along the 900-mile road. Over the course of the next several decades, the trail
would serve as a commercial highway between Mexico and the United States, facilitate economic
development and settlement by Americans after the Mexican-American War, and be a contested
supply line between the Confederate and Union armies during the American Civil War. The extension of
the railroad linking the East with the Southwest rendered the Santa Fe Trail largely obsolete. During its
prime, however, this important passage enabled sweeping changes by intertwining the economies of
distant parts of the country and the world.
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