It’s a quiet place now, where a few deer glide softly through the dry autumn grass. A magpie circles, then touches down on a wind-worn fencepost near the Craig Ranch Bed and Breakfast and Horse Motel, just east of Limon.

But not so long ago, the hoof beats of cavalry pounded the prairie into a dusty stubble, as patrols rode out to guard stagecoaches of the Butterfield Overland Despatch. Every day, soldiers mustered from nearby forts to protect covered wagons, as gold seekers thronged westward to stake their claims along Cherry Creek in the big Colorado gold rush of 1859.

The 15,000-acre ranch, now run by Johnny and Beth Craig, was the scene of fierce skirmishes in the 1850s and 1860s. Native Americans were trying to protect their buffalo hunting grounds, while soldiers charged with protecting emigrants along the Smoky Hill Trail sought to maintain order in the vast Colorado territory.

The trail passes through the present-day ranch. A nearby stagecoach stop, Heddinger’s Lake Station, was the only one along the route with an underground tunnel, to protect waiting passengers from attack. And near the railroad crossing where guests make a final turn to the B&B, bandits robbed a Union Pacific train back in 1900. The loot from the train, valued at $35,000, still hasn’t been found.

Some of that Colorado history comes to life in the basement of the B&B. Along with a collection of brightly painted ponies, the Craigs show us artifacts found on the ranch: Buttons from military tunics, spent bullets, and love tokens — 25-cent pieces polished on one side so a soldier could engrave them with the initials of a loved one before heading to dangerous duty.

The furnishings in the guest rooms include antique wooden beds and dressers that came across the prairie in a covered wagon. Some of the quilts hanging on the walls are 200-year-old American classics.

Leigh and I are here to do some research for Open Road Publishing’s Best of Colorado guidebook, set to appear about a year from now. Both of us have lived in Colorado long enough to think of ourselves as locals, if not natives.

But as we start to explore the wide-open spaces east of Denver, we realize we have much to learn about the Centennial State.

These days, the local chamber of commerce touts Limon as the hub of eastern Colorado, where major north-south routes intersect with I-70. The town’s roots date back to 1888, when a railroad work camp was established.

But even before that, the area was a crucial corridor for westward migration.

The Smoky Hill trail was one of the busiest routes, more direct than the trails following the Arkansas and Platte Rivers. But it also was regarded as the most difficult route because of the lack of food and water.

By 1859, the Smoky Hill Trail was the most popular trail. The first stagecoach to use it left Atchison, Kansas on September 11, 1865 and arrived in Denver 12 days later. The fare from the Missouri River to Denver was $175, a high price in those days.

Sand Creek

It doesn’t cost quite that much to fill our gas tank as we head farther south and east toward Sand Creek, a nondescript but historically significant drainage near the Kansas border. Blasting through desolate towns like Kit Carson and Wildhorse on Highway 40, we veer east at Eads and then cut north just past Chivington, along a dirt track where recent winds have piled tumbleweeds chest-high against the roadside fence.

At the end of the road, we meet Andrew Sider. He’s the lone ranger at the National Park system’s 391st and newest unit — a small site marking the 1864 Sand Creek Massacre, one of the most infamous events in Colorado’s history.

Sider is a semi-retired attorney from Missouri who recently joined the National Park Service as an interpretive ranger. His passion for history is clear as he walks with us to an overlook at the scene of the massacre even though it’s almost closing time.

He explains how several units of a Colorado militia advanced on a peaceful encampment of Cheyenne and Arapahoe, slaughtering about 200 men, women and children in the day-long attack.

“Then there was the looting, the mutilating and the scalping. There were about 600 Cheyenne and Arapahoe in the camp. About two-thirds escaped to join the larger part of the Cheyenne Nation,” Sider says, gesturing from the top of the bluff northward, where the austere prairie fades away to a flat horizon.

Many of the Native Americans who once called the territory home ended up on the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming. Today, some of descendants of Cheyenne and Arapahoe at the Sand River camp commemorate the murder of their ancestors with long-distance runs between the two areas.

As a cool evening breeze riffles the prairie grass, Sider explains how the Native Americans were living at the encampment under the 1861 Treaty of Fort Wise. The treaty set aside for Native Americans a reservation between the Arkansas River and Sand Creek, in eastern Colorado.

Only 10 years earlier, the Treaty of Fort Laramie had promised the Cheyenne and Arapahoe a much bigger swath of land, stretching from the North Platte south the Arkansas River, and from the foothills of the Rockies east to Kansas.

Some bands of Cheyenne, including the militaristic Dog Soldiers, rejected the Fort Wise pact and continued to roam and hunt buffalo on their traditional lands. The Buffalo had already been hunted nearly to oblivion, putting pressure on the nomadic tribes. Some of the most influential chiefs sought to keep the peace, recognizing the overwhelming odds they faced.

“Black Kettle, one of the chiefs at Sand Creek, was flying a Stars and Stripes at his lodge,” Sider says. “Later, when the attack started, he also raised a white flag.”

But it was to no avail. Encouraged by territorial Governor John Evans, the 800-man militia commanded by Col. John Chivington was determined to carry out its horrific mission. At least a few of the veteran soldiers are outraged. Soon after the slaughter, they raise charges against their own officers, even as other members of the unit parade their grisly trophies in downtown Denver.

Santa Fe Trail

From Sand Creek we head due south, dropping into the Arkansas Valley near Lamar. Then, turning west, where Highway 50 follows the historic Santa Fe trail to La Junta and Rocky Ford, named for a shallow spot in the river where wagon trains once crossed the meandering stream.

Checking in to the Arkansas Valley Bed and Breakfast, we learn that owners Deborah and Ted Graffis are involved in efforts to boost tourism in sleepy Otero County.

“The house picked us,” says Deborah Graffis, describing how she and her husband decided to get into the lodging business after retiring from the Glenwood Springs area a couple of years ago. The inviting Victorian has three guest rooms with shared bathrooms, a broad veranda and an enclosed sunroom that’s perfect for puzzle-making and reading.

The cheery couple puts a plate of homemade sweets on the table. While Leigh and I devour chunks of swirled tiger butter and play with Dakota and Patches, the two B&B cats, Deb and Ted tell us about the incredible birding venues, and other little-known attractions around the Arkansas Valley.

The next morning we enjoy a delicious stack of pumpkin pancakes smothered with pumpkin sauce — and the last piece of tiger butter. Then we set out to visit Bent’s Old Fort, just a few miles east along Highway 50. This quiet part of Colorado may seem like a backwater today, but in the mid-1800s it was at the heart of a thriving trade scene, and Bent’s Old Fort was perfectly situated to capitalize on that commerce.

Two brothers, Charles and William Bent, joined forces with Ceran St. Vrain, a fur trapper and Taos trader, to form a new trading company. They built their fort in 1833 on the north bank of the Arkansas River, which at the time was the border with Mexico.

Trappers coming out of the Rockies with beaver pelts, plains Indians with buffalo robes and Navajos with brightly colored blankets all met at the adobe fort, engaging in trade that was profitable for all parties. On a larger scale, the fort was one of the key way-posts in a trade network that extended all the way to the East Coast and across the sea to Europe.

This early version of global free-trade lasted for a few decades. Then, the focus shifted from trade to military operations, foreshadowing the war with Mexico. The fort was abandoned in 1849 and it eventually burned, but was painstakingly reconstructed by the National Park Service in 1976.

“It’s amazing that, in those times, someone documented the measurements so precisely that they could rebuild it,” says Leigh. We wander about the courtyard, stopping in the kitchen to watch how the old-timers baked apple pies in Dutch ovens.

We make friends with a couple of black cats. They are “employed” by the park service to catch mice, one of the rangers tells us.

The Park Service operates the recreated fort as a living history site. Guides and rangers wear period costumes. Along with other volunteers, they participate in re-enactments of daily life at the fort, right down to baking Dutch oven apple pies in an open hearth. Coming up in early December are candlelight tours and re-enactments of 1840s holiday celebrations. Last summer, the fort hosted a four-day living-history encampment, enabling participants to learn about 1840s life at the fort by living it.

Grasslands and canyons

South of Bent’s Old Fort and La Junta, the plains suddenly crumble to a ragged edge down toward the Purgatoire River. Grasslands suddenly give way to scraggly juniper trees, and from trailheads in the Commanche National Grassland, a network of trails winds down into cool shady canyons.

After throwing a few apples and cookies into a pack, Leigh and I start down the trail in Vogel Canyon to explore the last stop on our weekend swing through Colorado’s southeastern plains.

The clefts in these mustard-color rocks were used as shelter by Stone Age nomads some 10,000 years ago. More recently, Native Americans left etchings and drawings of animals on the water- and wind-worn cliffs.

And less than 100 years ago, settlers from back East tried their luck at homesteading in the canyon, at least until choking dust storms during the 1930s drought sent them packing. The Dust Bowl hit this part of Colorado especially hard, and the federal grassland preserve was established in part to prevent a recurrence of the event.

Part of the canyon system in the Commanche National Grassland was the route for a very rugged section of the Santa Fe Trail bound for New Mexico. It may not have been the easiest path, but it did offer a few strategic watering holes.

Farther south in the Commanche Grassland, Picketwire Canyon is well known for an astounding set of dinosaur tracks. Left by passing Apatosaurus and allosauraus, about 1,400 prints, in 100 separate track-ways, extend across a quarter mile of exposed bedrock. The multiple tracks have helped paleontologists better understand the social behavior of dinosaurs.

Nowadays, the grasslands harbor some of Colorado’s rare animals and plants, including the lesser prairie chicken, golden eagles, mountain plovers and burrowing owls, along with swift foxes and black-footed ferrets.

And while this quiet corner of the state seems relatively untouched, there are potential threats. A public lands watchdog group says that a new Forest Service management plan “sets few limits on oil and gas extraction and associated facility construction or on recreational off-road vehicle use and livestock grazing — the very uses that are destroying and damaging the values cherished by the public,” according to Rocky Smith, forest and grasslands program director with Colorado Wild.

As we zoom back along Highway 50, bound for Summit County via Pueblo, Cañon City and South Park, we’re thankful that we’re riding on four rubber tires, and not the metal-rimmed wood wheels of days gone by, and happy about our rewarding historical weekend journey through the southeastern plains of Colorado.

If you go ...

For an overview of attractions, go to exploresoutheastcolorado.com.

Limon and Smoky Hill Trail area

Craig Ranch B&B and Horse Motel: craigranchbandb.com, E-mail craigranch@msn.com, (719) 775-2658

The B&B, out on the high plains east of Limon, features horse boarding and a friendly family atmosphere. It’s great place to bring your horses down from the High Country for a vacation from the snow. Along with an interesting collection of pioneer-era memorabilia, the B&B has hosted the world’s largest horse, a Belgian Gelding named Radar, more than 19 hands high and weighing in at 2,300 pounds.

A good history and overview of the Smoky Hill Trail is online at keystone

gallery.com/area/history/bod.html.

For a map of the Smoky Hill Trail, go to smokyhilltrail.info/images.htm.

Limon honors its frontier and railroad heritage with a museum at the historic depot, listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Depot once serviced both Rock Island and Union Pacific Railroads. The Museum includes the restored train depot, an adjacent railroad park and an exhibit building depicting the life and legends of the plains.

Log on ourjourney.info to request a free tour kit, including a map of the area with driving instructions for a self-guided tour, highlights of highway mile marker road-side attractions and even a song book to keep travelers entertained.

Museum information: townoflimon.com/index.php?option=com_content=view=13id=29

Road Food

For dining in Limon, check out Oscar’s Pub and Grill, at 2295 9th St. It’s classic Americana, with truckers in black knit hats playing pool and drinking Budweiser, as a skinny-legged cowboy in tight jeans, a pink shirt and sheepskin vest sits at the bar with his ten-gallon Stetson pulled low over his eyes, while his bleached blond girlfriend twirls her curls. Keeping with the name of the eatery, the food is named after famous movies, A Fish Called Wanda features grilled halibut, Three Amigos is a medley of swordfish, salmon and halibut, while One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a pasta dish with chicken and mushrooms. Prices are moderate and the quality is surprisingly good for a diner tucked in between truck stops and chain restaurants. Farther south and east, near the Sand Creek Massacre, there aren’t too many places to find decent food, so don’t pass up the K&M Ranch House Restaurant in Eads, along Highway 96, next to the Econo Lodge. We enjoyed a classic American diner lunch for under $20, including a juicy hamburger steak, a grilled turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich smothered with sautéed onions and two slices of homemade pie.

Sand Creek

The Sand Creek Massacre National Historic Site is north of the town of Chivington, ironically named for the colonel commanding the militia that slaughtered about 200 mostly unarmed Cheyenne and Arapahoe. The area is closed seasonally, so check the National Park Service website for directions and operating hours, as well as cultural and historic information at nps.gov/sand/.

Rocky Ford & Arkansas Valley

Arkansas Valley Bed and Breakfast arkansasvalleybedandbreakfast.com, E-mail: debandted@Arkansasvalleybedand

breakfast.com, (719) 254-7999, 301 N 12th Rocky Ford CO 81067.

The friendly Arkansas Valley B&B is a perfect base camp for exploring Rocky Ford, the historic Santa Fe Trail, Bent’s Old Fort and the trails, wildlife and rock art in the Commanche National Grassland. In summer, be sure to sample the area’s luscious produce, especially the world famous Rocky Ford cantaloupe melons. In the winter, this part of the Arkansas Valley fills with flocks of over-wintering and migrant birds. Detailed information about bird-watching is at coloradobirdingtrail.com.

Bent’s Old Fort & the Santa Fe Trail

Travel time from Missouri to Bent’s Fort on the Santa Fe Trail was 50 to 60 days for oxen-drawn wagons loaded with trade goods. The remainder of the trek to Santa Fe across the rugged terrain of the southern Rockies took another 30 days. Bent’s Old Fort information and hours of operation are online at nps.gov/archive/beol/home.htm. On Dec. 7 and 8 the fort will recreate 1840s-style holidays, with wagon rides, games, toy making and other holiday festivities. The event Dec. 7 with candlelight tours of the fort and continues all through Dec. 8 culminating with another evening of candlelight tours. For reservations, call (719) 383-5026.

For more events, check in at nps.gov/archive/beol/spevent.htm.

Comanche Grasslands information: trail

sandgrasslands.org/comanche.html

Hiking and rock art in Vogel Canyon: exploresoutheastcolorado.com/vogel.htm

Picketwire Canyonlands: fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/coma/main/picketwireguide.shtml

Picketwire Dinosaur tracks: fs.fed.us/r2/psicc/coma/palo/index.shtml