Long before Nevada's famous Sin City sprouted in the desert, a New Mexico town by the same name was literally America's gateway to the West. Set in the foothills of the Rockies just west of the Great Plains, Las Vegas, N.M., flourished as a key node on the Santa Fe Trail. For traders heading west from Old Franklin, Missouri, Las Vegas was the first city they would encounter after more than a thousand miles crossing the open plains. That was assuming they survived the weather, the outlaws, and various bands of Indigenous warriors who thought they had no business there. Las Vegas's heyday began with the Mexican-American War, when U.S. forces used the Santa Fe Trail to invade Mexican territory in 1846. The arrival of...Read More