The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992 Page: 261
peared in two publications in 1988 (Impessions of the Santa Fe Trad. A Contempo-
ary Dairy and Images of the Santa Fe iadl). Franzwa recommends reading one of
these background reports before plunging into this book of over one hundred
locator maps for those searching for traces of the trail on the landscape. I
agree. The erosion scars in the hillslope depressions or the wide parallel grooves
that string out through the rolling prairie are interesting to see, but the magic
of this man-made scar is played out in the experiences of those who were the
earlier travelers. These experiences are chromcled in numerous diaries and
manuscripts that have been published on the Santa Fe 'Trail.
It would appear that with only a little more effort a great deal of this nar-
rative on places and events associated with the trail could have filled the page
facing each map As it is, the brief notes containing highlighted elements of
each map page are insufficient to stimulate the reader about the twenty to
twenty-five-mile sections of trail etched in red along portions of black-and-
white state highway department maps and US(;S topographic maps. As a
geographer I am greatly disturbed by the lack of consistency in this atlas as wit-
nessed in the fluctuation from topograplhic maps to highway maps and in the
variation in scale that frequently occurs between two maps. A clear example of
this occurs on page 145 (map 70) where a scale change is noted in the middle of
the page and the county roads on both sidles are impossible to match up. This
leads to a great deal of skepticism when the Cimarron Cutoff of the Santa Fe
Trail is depicted as a smooth line that transcends this scale without a jag.
Although the cartographic elements have major flaws, I find the book an ex-
tremely useful resource for the adventurer who would be willing to make the
trek to locate the remaining disappearing traces of an important element of the
western history of America. I field checked the accuracy of Franzwa's book in
areas of northeastern New Mexico that I had visited many times. Faint lines on
the hillsides that I had never observed before took on a whole new meaning
when they matched with the route indicated in the book.
I'm not certain that Maps of the Santa Fe 7'adll will benefit the academic who is
searching for information and detail about events or people associated with the
trail. It does appear to have enornlous utility for the vacationer who is search-
ing for a summer quest. It should be a valuable resource for preserving the
place of the trail in the states that it transverses long after the visable evidence
Unwer.szly of New Mexico JERRY L. WILLIAMS
Fronlzei Sptzl: Early Chnches of the Southwest. By Douglas Kent Hall (Japan: Ab-
beville Press, Inc., i99o. Pp. 216. Introduction, bibliography, index, pho-
This attractive volume is, ostensibly, a tour of the churches established in the
Hispanic Southwest. It was inspired by the unreasonable loss of the first such
church in North America, which dated from 1598, and it closes with a plea for
the conservation of these frontier monuments. We proceed-but not neces-
sarily progress-from the churches of "freehand" architecture to those eigh-
teenth-century churches of' (Alta) California, some of which we associate with
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 95, July 1991 - April, 1992, periodical, 1992; Austin, Texas. (texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117153/m1/307/ocr/: accessed October 27, 2016), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.