Francisco Vasquez de Coronado came through the area in 1541, Zebulon Pike in 1806, and in 1821 William Becknell passed this way when he opened the Santa Fe Trail. When the Santa Fe railroad reached this vicinity in 1872, the town of Dodge City was born. Buffalo hunters and soldiers from nearby Fort Dodge populated the town in its earliest years. But Dodge City is most famous for its cattle drive days of 1875-1886, when Texas longhorns came up the trail to the railhead to be shipped to stockyards in Chicago. Dodge City soon was branded "Queen of the Cowtowns."