Lower Cimarron Spring

Lower Cimarron Spring was an important watering spot on the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe Trail. The flow of the spring came from an outcropping of the Ogallala Formation. Center pivot irrigation adjacent to the spring resulted in lowering of the water table and the spring ceased to flow in the 1960s. A number of small artifacts dating from the days of the Santa Fe Trail have been recovered from lands near the spring which were used by both American Indians and wagon trains as a campground. The name "wagon bed" dates from later use of an old wagon bed as a trough to collect water from the spring. There is a foundation on the site of an ice house. Floods have changed the course of the Cimarron River; the site of the spring is now in the bed of the river rather than on its bank as it was in the days of the Santa Fe Trail