Situated where the High Plains meet the Rocky Mountains and where the Santa Fe Trail crosses the Cimarron River, the village of Cimarron has a richly varied history. Spectacular rock columns, thick seams of coal, dinosaur footprints, pit houses, and petroglyphs echo an early geologic and human presence. Spanish explorers encountered area Native American settlements in the 1700s, and by the 1820s, mountain men roamed these Rockies while eastern merchants followed Indian trails to Santa Fe. By the 1860s, Cimarron was the headquarters of a vast Mexican land grant managed by Lucien Maxwell and...