William Becknell was a frontiersman, trader, soldier, and politician who is credited with opening the Santa Fe Trail in 1821 Becknell was born in Amherst County, Virginia, around 1788 to Micajah and Pheby Landrum Becknell. When he grew up, he married a woman named Jane Trusler in 1807 in Virginia. Three years later, the couple … Continue reading William Becknell – Father of the Santa Fe Trail