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There are a variety of lessons and activities for grades 4-12. The historic trail lessons are an essential lens to understanding the perspectives, pathways and intersections of emigrants, American Indians, white settlers, soldiers and traders throughout the early to late 19th century. We encourage you to incorporate these lessons into your classroom as you deem fit. We highly recommend that you familiarize yourself with:
Through the portal, you will have full access to NPS recommended lessons and activities that align with Common Core and State Standards. Simply use the search engine and type in "Old Spanish National Historic Trail." Some of these lessons are credited to teachers in local communities, while others link to partner websites and associated trail sites along the Old Spanish Trail. National Historic Trails Lesson PlanThis 3-5 day lesson focuses on the skills of collaboration and presentation in an effort to teach students about the content and concepts along nine of the national historic trails. The purpose of this is to have them not only research and understand, but also think critically about the pathways and perspectives of trail travelers. This multiday lesson plan was created by a Colorado teacher for national historic trails (see below). Navigating the Interior World: Intertwined StoriesNative Trails StoryMap with Context and Guiding QuestionsHow were Native nations impacted by trade, exploration, and settlement along the Old Spanish Trail? Two graduate students from the University of New Mexico created this StoryMap to begin to evaluate that question in a broad context.
All national historic trails have a designated path from one end to the other. But it’s difficult to portray human history with something as straightforward as a line. In this StoryMap, University of New Mexico graduate students Sierra Ramirez (Department of History) and Joseph Scala (Department of Geography and Environmental Studies) visualize historic trails in a different way. In doing so, they tell a broader story about the impact of trade, exploration, and settlement on Native nations.
For their case study, Ramirez and Scala use the Old Spanish National Historic Trail, which commemorates New Mexican-led trading expeditions between Santa Fe and Los Angeles from 1829–1848. The Old Spanish Trail skirted the northern edge of what historian Natale Zappia calls the Interior World—a vast stretch of deserts, mountains, and canyons home to Zuni, Hopi, Mojave, Ute, and Quechan peoples (among others). Trade along the trail began in 1829, fulfilling a longstanding desire to connect the Rio Grande Valley to the Pacific Coast. By 1848, the trail’s importance as a trade route had diminished, but the New Mexico-California connection it represented would remain significant. A variety of military expeditions traversed parts of the Old Spanish Trail. Many of these were railroad surveys led by the US Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, which charted much more direct courses across the Interior World in the 1850s than the traders who preceded them. Leaders of these expeditions generally hailed from service academies like West Point, where they learned military strategy alongside engineering, cartography, and other sciences. Some of the most detailed accounts of the Interior World after the Mexican-American War come from these surveys, which documented the region’s climate, geography, botany, and geology; they also produced detailed accounts of the different Native peoples they encountered. New Mexican traders and military surveyors both relied upon the Native nations of the Interior World for trade and travel advice. Army survey parties relied heavily on guides, who supplied the political know-how and geographic knowledge necessary for the expeditions to achieve their goals. Through these intermediaries, the military men glimpsed a landscape rich with boundaries, alliances, and conflicts. This StoryMap is an attempt to illustrate those connections.
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Last updated: August 10, 2026