Started as a saloon in 1873, First-floor rooms are named for the cowboys and outlaws who stayed here—people like Bat Masterson, Buffalo Bill Cody and Jesse James. The Cimmaron Cutoff travels west out of Clayton past the Rabbit Ear Mountains, and heads for Wagon Mound, the last major landmark on the cutoff. The Mountain Branch and the Cimarron Cutoff intersected at Watrous, and then the trail went west to Fort Union, Las Vegas, and into Pecos. A granite marker on the Santa Fe Plaza commemorates the physical end of the trail. But the arrival of the railroad in Santa Fe in 1880 marked the literal end of almost 60 years of caravans rolling into the old town. The wagons may be gone, but the spirit of the Santa Fe Trail still lives.
