Welcome!

This website is a collection of the DRAFT data collected for the 2011 nomination of 6 high potential route segments of the Old Spanish National Historical Trail in a contract administered by the Old Spanish Trail Association on behalf of the NPS, BLM, and USFS. SHPOs and THPOs in 6 states, as well as over 100 volunteers and stakeholders participated in this project, which included historical, ethnographic, geographic, and field research conducted by Mark Henderson and Rachel Preston Prinz. The drafts were written by Mark Henderson and edited by Rachel Prinz. This data will be submitted to the National Register once OSTA's consultant (not us) completes the MPDF. We are providing this data as a service to the OSTA membership, to the various stakeholders, and on behalf of the American people... to whom this amazing trail belongs.
Please fell free to contact us, and/or use these documents in your own research, with appropriate citation.

Thoughts on The Jornada

In Old Spanish Trail times, the jornada, or day's journey between camps... was a critical component of travel planning. It also helps us know where to start looking for campsites from the period.
But it means more than that too... it is derived from the same principal as the French sojourner. Martha Guenther points out the concept of sojourn "...reminds us of our transience and the inexorable passage of time. It reminds us of our smallness and ultimate powerlessness. It reminds us that we do not own this world but that we are merely passing through. It reminds us that God's time is not our time."
I find this passage so  thoughtful, and though she was talking about spirituality, it helps me put myself in the shoes of the travelers on the OST.
- Rachel
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