Source: Lisa Null and "Old Time Cowboy Songs" ed Hal Cannon p 62, Internet sources.
Finest Kind learned "Santa Fe Trail" from Peter Bellamy. Peter Bellamy learned it from Lisa Null. Lisa Null learned it from her 2nd grade teacher back in elementary school, in the late 1940s
Notes: one of the most copyrighted & stolen songs in America
11/16/1821: William Becknell party reaches Santa Fe, N.M. - 1st use of Santa Fe
Trail.
Although Jules Allen (who recorded it in 1929) appears not to have known it when he recorded this song and printed it in his 1933 volume 'Cowboy Lore', it was published in sheet music with the title 'The Santa Fe Trail' in 1911 by Comet Publishing Co of Denver Colorado. The words were by James Grafton Rogers, a prominent citizen of Colorado who had recently celebrated his 90th birthday; the melody and arrangement were by John H. Gower, a Denver church organist. When a very young man, Mr Rogers worked on a New York City newspaper and wrote numerous verses and songs that he hoped would qualify for Broadway shows. Later, he became a distinguished attorney, served as Dean of the University of Colorado Law School, and held many other important posts in his home state of Colorado and in the federal government in Washington DC .
(Start A Key F for comfort. Changed for ease of chorus singing)
