ARTIST: Edward T Vebell (Illinois, 1921-2018) NAME: Epic Events - Santa Fe Trail YEAR: 1980 MEDIUM: gouache on board CONDITION: Excellent. SIGHT SIZE: 20 x 21 inches / 50 x 53 cm BOARD SIZE: 27 x 28 inches / 68 x 71 cm SIGNATURE: lower right NOTE: The first of the great trails West was the Santa Fe. As early as 1619, Spain had made the little mission town of Santa Fe the capital of New Mexico, and zealously guarded it against intrusion by Americans. Then in 1821, Mexico won independence from Spain, all was changed: the new government welcomed American traders -- and textiles, tools, weapons and money -- in exchange for silver, furs and wool. It was an early explorer, William Becknell, who first marked out one of the several trails to Santa Fe, from Independence, Missouri to the Great Bend of the Arkansas, then to the Rockies and south across the Cimarron Desert to Santa Fe. Not until the acquisition of New Mexico by the United States did trade with Santa Fe become important. Scores of traders, muleteers and "bullwackers" wound their way across the plains and into the country of the Indians. The discovery of gold in California gave new life to the Santa Fe Trail, for it was an alternate route to the Pacific. The trail reached its greatest days in the 1860s when over 2,500 wagons, with over three thousand men and women and almost thirty thousand oxen made the venture in one season. It came to an end in 1880 when the Santa Fe Railroad was completed. Perhaps, in the long run, its greatest contribution was to the American imagination and American literature. PROVENANCE: This artwork was originally published on the Fleetwood Commemorative Cover for Epic Events in American History series issued in 1985.; Collection of James A. Helzer (1946-2008), Founder of Unicover Corporation. CATEGORY: antique vintage painting SKU#: 116916 US Shipping $75 + insurance. AD: ART CONSIGNMENTS WANTED. CONTACT US BIOGRAPHY: Ed Vebell (1921-2018) is an American illustrator, veteran, and Olympic athlete who attended the Chicago Institute of Art before enlisting. While serving in the Army, he was a contributing artist for Stars & Stripes magazine, working side by side with Bill Mauldin. His second major appointment was as courtroom artist for the Nuremburg Trials; his haunting portrait of Hermann Gering can be viewed at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Over the decades following the war, Vebell designed 16 circulated postage stamps for the US Postal Service, and enjoyed frequent commissions from Reader's Digest, Sports Illustrated, and Time.