Hutchinson, Kas., March 5—The New Santa Fe trail is the name of a fine dirt road that is to be established across the state of Kansas, from Kansas City to the Colorado mountains at Pueblo, Colorado Springs and Denver. At the meeting held in Hutchinson on the last day of January, which was attended by about 500 people, some of them coming from a distance of 500 miles, it was decided to improve the existing roads, for the most part, and to open others for a portion of the distance from Newton, through Hutchinson and along the Arkansas river valley, to the west line of the state of Kansas, at Coolidge.
This route is to follow, for a good share of the way the route of the old Santa Fe trail, which was the frontier highway established by traders in 1822 and which was the only means of communication for fifty years, or until 1872, when the Santa Fe railroad was built through the state. The distance is slightly in excess of 300 miles, from Newton to Coolidge, and it passes through all of the towns along the Arkansas river from Hutchinson westward. There is a shorter line, for a distance of 85 miles, from Hutchinson to Kinsley, where the former route is joined.
Some state officials in Colorado attended the meeting and it is practically assured that the good roads movement will be extended, early in the spring, from the Kan[sas state line to]* Pueblo. Colorado Springs and Denver people are starting a movement that will carry this road on to Denver, the ultimate objective point of the work being done in Kansas.
Agitation is to be started at once on the extension of the road east from Hutchinson and Newton to Kansas City, following the Santa Fe railroad lines, as it does farther west, to the Missouri state line. It is hoped to have good work done on every mile of the road to the Missouri state line before the summer is far advanced. Already work has been started west from Hutchinson and the officers of the road, R. H. Faxon, president, and editor of the Garden City Telegram, and C. H. Scott, secretary, good roads editor of the Hutchinson News, with an executive committee consisting of one member from each county, are to push the improvement and maintenance.

*this portion of the sentence was omitted, likely due to a missing section of type.