From Ely the route is approximated today by the roads to Ibapah, Utah, Callao, Utah, Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Fairfield, Utah to Salt Lake City, Utah (See: Pony Express Map[10] and Pony Express auto route[27]), The Central Overland Route was about 280 miles (450 km) shorter than the 'standard' California Trail Humboldt River route. The Pony Express used this route in the summer and winter of 1860–61. Not knowing what else to do and knowing they needed grass and water, they followed the river. The Humboldt was praised for having water, fishing and feed along its banks and also cursed for its barely adequate grass, meandering and often muddy channel, and hot weather. The freight going to the gold and silver strikes in Nevada at the Comstock Lode were calculated to pay about $13,000,000 per year in wagon tolls—a fraction of this was well worth pursuing. 2) Indian attacks—Indian attacks increased significantly after 1860 when most of the army troops were withdrawn and miners and ranchers began fanning out all over the country often encroaching on Indian territory. Cheyenne, WY (82003) Today. It was the only overland route from the East to California that could be kept partially open for at least horse traffic in the winter. [76] Nearly all were impressed by the City of Rocks—now a national reserve and Idaho State Park. Although magnifying lenses had been discovered in 1592 effective microscopes that could see germs well were just being developed and widely used starting in the 1860s. Cooking equipment was typically light and included only simple cooking utensils such as butcher knives, forks, metal plates and cups, spoons, large spoons, spatulas, ladles, Dutch ovens, pots and pans, grills, spits, coffee pots, pot hooks and an iron tripod to suspend the pans and pots over the fire. In addition to the Wyoming State Library and University of Wyoming Libraries collaboration, the two units also joined forces with the Colorado State Library to launch “Plains to Peaks Historic Newspaper Database,” a one-stop collection that combines the Wyoming and Colorado historic newspaper collections. per person could easily double this cost. Without the many thousands of United States settlers in Oregon and California with their "boots on the ground" and more thousands on their way each year, it is highly unlikely that this would have occurred. Travelers rarely made the entire trip without one or more in their traveling group dying. Sections of what became the California Trail route were discovered and developed by American fur traders including Kit Carson, Joseph R. Walker, and Jedediah Smith, who often worked with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and after 1834 by the American Fur Company and explored widely in the west. We are a vibrant community with a … The Humboldt River with its water and grass needed by the livestock (oxen, mules horses and later cattle) and emigrants provided a key link west to northern California. In emergencies, the early pioneers, with and without Army help, nearly always organized relief parties. Prior to the 6th crossing, the trail crossed an unusual location known as Ice Slough. The more knowledgeable also brought dried fruit and vegetables to provide some variety (and Vitamin C) and were a known (to many) scurvy prevention. South Pass itself is an unimpressive open saddle between the Wind River Range to the north and the Antelope Hills to the south, but it represented a major milestone in the trip. Branching off the Johnson's Cutoff (Placerville Road) was about 10 miles (16 km) Daggett Pass toll road (Georgetown Pack Trail) (est. abt 1850). They got over the Sierra at Donner Pass by unloading the wagons and packing the contents to the top using their ox teams as pack animals. Later travelers typically used improvements and routes established by previous travelers. With scarce provisions, winter approaching and failing draft animals, by the end of 1843 they had traveled south almost 300 miles (480 km) on the east side of the Sierra before they abandoned their wagons near Owens Lake in eastern central California and proceeded by pack train to make a December crossing of the Sierra Nevada mountains over Walker Pass .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}35°39′47″N 118°1′37″W / 35.66306°N 118.02694°W / 35.66306; -118.02694 on California State Route 178) in the southeast Sierra, an arduous route used by almost no one else. Today the cutoff is approximately followed off SR 88 by the Fiddletown Silver Lake Road, Shake Ridge Road And Ram's Horn Grade. The diet in the mining camps was also initially poor in fresh or dried vegetables and fruit, which indirectly led to early deaths of many Argonauts. They left the valley, ascended to the ridge, and turned westward to old Emigrant Gap, where they were lowered their wagons by ropes to the floor of Bear River (Feather River tributary) Valley. The heavy firewood and timber needs of the Comstock Lode' strike lead to much of the Carson Range and part of the Sierra Nevada being extensively denuded of timber. Though the numbers are significant in the context of the times, far more people chose to remain at home in the 31 states. At the head of the Raft River they crossed a divide into the Big Basin drainage and followed a series of streams like Thousand Springs Creek in what is now Nevada to the Humboldt River valley near today's Wells, Nevada. The half day path up over West Pass was easy compared to the climb to Carson Pass and was used by thousands of wagons from 1848 to 1863. Exactly why the road was to terminate at Honey Lake near Susanville is a legislative mystery, since very few went that way in 1857 or later. Lincoln, about two miles (3 km) south of Donner's pass. Trail traffic rapidly fell off as the cross-country trip was much quicker and easier by train—about seven days. It avoided Forty Mile Desert and many of the high passes and difficult climbs of other routes, but it introduced some difficult desert crossings and had very limited grass and water. Lander's Road officially was called the Fort Kearney, South Pass and Honey Lake Road and was a federally funded attempt to improve the Oregon and California trails. The first decision to make was what route to take to California, the California Trail or the various sea routes. [73][74] The long and very difficult trail they had blazed was used by virtually none of the succeeding emigrants. Toll bridges and ferries were active at nearly all previously dangerous river crossings as the trail became not only safer but quicker. Chiles led the rest in a pack train party down the Malheur River to California. Because of the large number of animals on the trail, and their close interaction with people, accidents with animals that only resulted in minor injury were much more common. The Sublette cutoff saved about 50 miles (80 km) but the typical price was numerous dead oxen and the wrecks of many wagons. In 1860, Landers was instructed to find a new route north of the Humboldt. In general, as little road work as possible was done. The Henness Pass road's California Stage Company and Nevada Stage Line carried somewhat fewer passengers. Fremont and his topographers/cartographers did not have time (it would take literally decades of work to do this) to make extensive explorations of the entire Sierra Nevada range or Great Basin. After a few weeks care and good feeding, these same teams could often be resold at a substantial profit. Starting in 1848, many left the main trail to stay in a mining district(s) or town(s) that developed along or off the trail(s). Carrying around a ten-pound rifle all day soon became tedious and usually unnecessary as the perceived Indian threat faded and hunting opportunities receded. Many of the travelers left their names on the rock, either carved or painted on with axle grease. Real shade, grass for their animals and no more bitter, soapy-tasting Humboldt River water were much appreciated. On the open plains, the wagons typically spread out to minimize traveling in dust. Emigration to California spiked considerably due to the 1849 gold rush. Branching off the Truckee Trail was the Nevada City Road (est 1850) to Nevada City. At Fort Hall he met Joseph Reddeford Walker who he convinced to lead half the settlers with him traveling in wagons back to California down the Humboldt. Mormon emigration records after 1860 are reasonably well known, as newspaper and other accounts in Salt Lake City give most of the names of emigrants that arrived each year from 1847 to 1868. 1844) going roughly almost due west where Interstate 80 goes today towards the site of modern-day Wadsworth, Nevada. These probably numbered from 200 to 500 deaths or more along the trail. The tolls on the various bridges, ferries and toll roads typically averaged about $30.00 per wagon by 1860. Many emigrants from the eastern seaboard traveled from the east coast across the Allegheny Mountains to Brownsville, Pennsylvania (a barge building and outfitting center) or Pittsburgh and thence down the Ohio River on flatboats or steamboats to St. Louis, Missouri. Snow will end this morning giving way to some clearing this afternoon. Luther Pass (present CA SR 89) joined the older emigrant route northeast of Carson Pass through Carson River Canyon rather than following the trails along Lake Tahoe. Sunny with gusty winds. A usable but very rough wagon route had finally been worked out along the Humboldt River and the rugged, hot and dry Forty Mile Desert across Nevada and over the rugged and steep Sierra Nevada by California-bound settlers. The first resting spot after the pass for many was beautiful Summit Valley (now mostly covered by Lake Van Norden reservoir) a few miles from the summit. Today's Interstate 80 goes over much of the same route and is the main transportation artery over the Sierra in northern California. Once near Lake Tahoe it was forced to climb some further steep ridges by rocky spurs jutting into the lake and swampy ground (modern U.S. Highway 50 corrects both these problems). IX, 209, 231, 238-9, 246-51, 266-7, 268-71, The Chautauqua Press, Chautauqua, New York, 1931. Near the end of the Humboldt, one of the worst sections of the California Trail showed up, the Forty Mile Desert.[101][102]. At the same time along what became known as the Mormon Road were seeded the Mormon settlements that developed into towns and cities of modern Utah, Arizona, Nevada and Southern California.[85]:44–70[86]. Almost no cities existed in Nevada then, and Virginia City would be Nevada's first major city[citation needed]. The trickle of emigrants before 1848 became a flood after the discovery of gold in California in January 1848, the same year that the U.S. acquired and paid for possession of the New Mexico Territory and California Territory in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which terminated the Mexican–American War. [136] The trail passed through Rabbithole Springs, crossed the Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon before finally (after nearly 100 miles (160 km) of desert travel) arriving at Surprise Valley and climbing steeply to go over 6,300 feet (1,900 m) Fandango Pass. The Platte's water was silty and bad-tasting but it could be used if no other water was available. The Carson Trail branch (est. This cutoff was developed by John Calhoun Johnson of Placerville in about 1850–51. The wagons were veterans of the 1846 or 1847 emigration as California had at that time no facilities for building anything besides simple solid wheeled ox carts. The first recorded party to use part of the California Trail to get to California was the Bartleson–Bidwell Party in 1841. A more secure route for communication and passengers between the non-Confederate states and the west was needed. At the end of the Humboldt River, where it disappeared into the alkaline Humboldt Sink, travelers had to cross the deadly Forty Mile Desert before finding either the Truckee River or Carson River in the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada mountains that were the last major obstacles before entering Northern California.[9]. It was discovered by some hurrying travelers in 1849 (before the experience of the 1846 travelers was widely known) that during a wet year, wagons could not be pulled across the Great Salt Lake Desert; it was too soft. The route, called Noble's Road, left the main trail near Lasson's meadow (now Rye Patch Reservoir) in Nevada, and bypassed most of the large Applegate-Lassen loop north almost to Goose Lake (Oregon-California) on the Oregon-California border. As early as 1837, John Marsh, who was the first American doctor in California and the owner of the large Rancho Los Meganos, realized that owning a great rancho was problematic if he could not hold it. It could be used much of the winter season for at least horse travel. In 1852 Auburn was reachable by wagons from Sacramento. After about 1832 a rough wagon trail had been blazed to the Green River—the chief tributary of the Colorado River. "[13] Initially from about 1825 to 1834 the fur traders used pack trains to carry their supplies in and the traded furs out. It is believed that on his first trip he used the Mojave River route (later part of the Old Spanish Trail) to get into California and 8,730 feet (2,660 m) Ebbetts Pass when leaving California in the spring 1827. [The] Humboldt is not good for man nor beast ... and there is not timber enough in three hundred miles of its desolate valley to make a snuff-box, or sufficient vegetation along its banks to shade a rabbit, while its waters contain the alkali to make soap for a nation. The Placerville route would be the first route that could be kept at least partially open even in winter. [60] The prevention or effective treatment for cholera, once patients were infected, were unknown in this era and death rates then sometimes reached 50% of infected people. 7,078 were here. Mules did better than horses on the often poor feed found along the way. The Lander Road, located further north than the main trail to Fort Hall, also bypassed Fort Bridger and was about 85 miles (137 km) shorter to Fort Hall. Since the most popular draft animal was ox teams (~70%), most walked nearly all the 2,000 or more miles to their destination. There were several "Truckee" routes over the Sierra here over time but nearly all required the wagons to be disassembled and hoisted straight up various cliffs using multiple teams to get the wagon parts and goods to the top. Wagon wheels could often be repaired by blacksmiths found along the way or replaced with an abandoned wagon's wheel but otherwise if damaged the wagon usually had to be abandoned. Trading posts along the way did a thriving business in buying worn down teams at low prices and selling fresh animals. Those with capital could often buy livestock in the Midwest and drive the stock to California or Oregon and usually make good money doing it. Many dead animals were concentrated at and in these "bad" water springs—often preventing access to them. [44][45] Horses and mules had the added disadvantage that they nearly always required herding and guarding day and night to prevent them from wandering off, stampeding, or being stolen. Lyman, George D. John Marsh, Pioneer: The Life Story of a Trail-Blazer on Six Frontiers, pp. They made a winter crossing of the Carson Range and Sierra Nevadas in February 1843. Starting in March 1860 and continuing till October 1861 the Pony express established many small relay stations along the Central Overland Route for their mail express riders. [133] Today's Ebbetts Pass National Scenic Byway is a very scenic drive but one of the least traveled highways across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The square-set timber process ultimately used millions of board feet of lumber. Some brought small stoves, but these were often jettisoned along the way as too heavy and unnecessary. Seventh Census 1850: California[156], Historic migration route in the western United States, "Central Route" redirects here. The typical California Trail wagon weighed about 1,300 pounds (590 kg) empty with about 2,500 pounds (1,100 kg) of capacity (starting with less than 2,000 pounds (910 kg) recommended) and about 88 cubic feet (2.5 m3) of storage space in an 11 feet (3.4 m)-long, 4 feet (1.2 m)-wide, by 2 feet (0.61 m)-high box. The distance from City of Rocks to Wells was about 100 miles (160 km).[99]. Discouraged but not defeated, road proponents got El-Dorado, Sacramento and Yolo counties to kick in $50,000 for road construction. [12] Maps put out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) show the network of rivers followed to get to California. Lyman, George D. John Marsh, Pioneer: The Life Story of a Trail-Blazer on Six Frontiers, pp. These widespread infections and thousands of deaths finally gave impetus to building, at great cost, effective citywide water and sewage systems in many European and US cities. The U.S. Senate had 10,000 copies of Fremont's map and exploration write-up printed. Some teams had up to ten animals pulling up to three wagons trailered behind each other. “This collaboration is yet another example of libraries working together to bring additional information resources to the people of Wyoming and bringing the world to Wyoming,” said Thomas Ivie, Wyoming State Library Research and Statistics Librarian. Fremont and his men, led by his guide and former trapper Kit Carson, made extensive expeditions starting in 1844 over parts of California and Oregon including the important Humboldt River and Old Spanish Trail routes. The Mormon Trail over the Wasatch Mountains followed roughly the same path as the Donner Party trail of 1846 but they built a much better trail with many more workers in 1847 to get to the Salt Lake valley with much less hassle—this was their main route to and from their Salt Lake communities. During the 1849 gold rush, Fort Laramie was known as "Camp Sacrifice" because of the large amounts of merchandise discarded nearby. Most did not realize for several days or even weeks they had made a wrong turn. Before the railroads came in, horse, mule or oxen pulled freight wagons from either California or the midwest were the only way new supplies from the east, midwest and Europe could get to several states. The route went from The Truckee Trail in Dog Valley (near today's Verdi, Nevada) up the Little Truckee River to Webber Lake[117] to the summit, through 6,920 feet (2,110 m) Henness Pass, along the ridge dividing the North and Middle Yuba Rivers and into Camptonville and Marysville. Howard, Thomas Frederick; "Sierra Cossings: First Roads to California"; University of California Press; 2000; p 84; Adams, Kenneth C., ed. Many of the 1845 and 1846 emigrants were recruited into the California Battalion to assist the U.S. Navy's Pacific Squadron with its sailors and marines in the fight for California's independence from Mexico. A typical wage then was from $1.00 to $2.00/day for laborers, teamsters etc., with higher wages when men were scarce. More than 800,000 pages are now available, with new content added monthly. Going east it leaves The Placerville Route near what is now Stateline, Nevada (near South Lake Tahoe) and progresses up Kingsbury Grade to 7,330 feet (2.23 km) Daggett Pass and on down the Kingsbury Grade to Carson Valley. West of Fort Hall, the trail traveled about 40 miles (64 km) on the south side of the Snake River southwest towards present day Lake Walcott (reservoir) on the Snake River. Here instead of immediately attempting to cross the Sierra by following the Carson River as it came out of the mountains they turned south, traveling east of the Sierra along what is now roughly the Nevada and California border—about where U.S. Route 395 in California is today. By 1846, the Great Flood of 1844's damage to up-river traffic was fixed, as primitive dredging had opened up the Missouri River as far as the Platte River confluence near Kanesville, Iowa (later renamed Council Bluffs). [9], Several accounts of travel along the Central Overland Route have been published. The California-bound travelers (including one woman and one child), knew only that California was west of them and there was reportedly a river across most of the 'Big Basin' that led part of the way to California. They finally abandoned their wagons in eastern Nevada when they realized the route they were on was getting ever rougher and they had missed the head of the Humboldt River. We offer a variety of institutional and program-specific scholarships; scholarships for activities, GPA's, High School Equivalency and scholarships from donors who love what you love! Initially, the road extended from the railhead (then Newcastle, about 30 miles (48 km) east of Sacramento) over Donner summit to Verdi, Nevada, where it joined the road developed by the Henness Pass road to Virginia City, Nevada. It slowly took over much of the shipping to Virginia City and the Washoe district as the railroad progressed over Donner Summit (December 1868) and into Truckee and beyond. Individuals buying most of the needed items would end up spending between $150 and $300 per person. On Smith's second trip he entered California the same way and left through Oregon. The public announcement of the gold discovery by President Polk in late 1848 and the display of an impressive amount of gold in Washington induced thousands of gold seekers in the east to begin making plans to go to California. We are asking patients to come at 8 am for the first round of vaccinations. Here, the Green cut a steep 400 feet (120 m) channel through the Green River Desert, which travelers had to descend by a steep rocky path to reach the life-giving water. The canyon was filled with boulders and rocks that had often fallen over a thousand feet into the canyon carved by the river through the Carson Range. Big Tree Road & Ebbetts Pass Road (est. Emergency supplies, repairs and livestock were often provided by local residents in Oregon, California and Utah for late travelers on the trail who were hurrying to beat the snow and had run out of supplies, broken down or needed fresh animals. The Beckwourth Trail (est. More is coming — last year UW received a National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to digitize 100,000 pages of Wyoming newspapers, dating from 1863 to 1963, as part of the state’s participation in the National Digital Newspaper Program. "From Trails to Freeways." [135] The trail headed northwest until it could pass north of the worst of the California Sierra Nevada mountains. Those traveling south of the Platte crossed the South Platte with its muddy and treacherous crossings using one of about three ferries (in dry years it could sometimes be forded without a ferry) before continuing up the North Platte into present-day Wyoming to Fort Laramie. Additional food like pickles, canned butter, cheese or pickled eggs were occasionally carried, but canned goods were expensive and relatively heavy to carry and food preservation was primitive, so few perishable items could be safely kept for the four to six-month duration of the trip. Treatments were almost always ineffective and sometimes hastened death. Despite modern depictions where nearly everybody rides, almost nobody unless a child, pregnant wife or injured traveler actually rode long in the wagons; it was too dusty, too rough and too hard on the livestock. The route today is approximated today by the roads from: Salt Lake City, Utah, Fairfield, Utah (then called Camp Floyd), Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Callao, Utah, Ibapah, Utah to Ely, Nevada. The trail along the Bear usually had good grass, water, good fishing and wood. [90] Despite the better conditions for livestock, the mountainous terrain and unpredictable weather made passage sometimes difficult and required continuing federally funded maintenance on the mountainous road—not a sure thing just before, during and after the American Civil War. It was not until the early 1950s that the road over Monitor Pass to U.S. Route 395 was completed, connecting the eastern terminus of State Route 4 to U.S. Route 395 via California State Route 89 near the community of Topaz, California. Most walked nearly all the way. South Pass, the easiest pass over the U.S. continental divide of the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean drainages, was discovered by Robert Stuart and his party of seven in 1812 while he was taking a message from the west to the east back to John Jacob Astor about the need for a new ship to supply Fort Astoria on the Columbia River—their supply ship Tonquin had blown up. This was the last water before crossing about 45 miles (72 km) of desert consisting of soft dry soil that rose in suffocating clouds[82] before reaching the next water at the Green River about 4 miles (6.4 km) below the present town of La Barge, Wyoming. They had to use even more time skirting around the Ruby Mountains in Nevada before hitting the Humboldt River and the regular trail. Winds NW at 10 to 20 mph. This ignores most of California's population increase from the excellent sea and rail connections across Panama that existed by then. This road eventually became U.S. Route 50.[143]. They and their surviving wagons and teams were in poor shape. They descended from the Sierra via the Stanislaus River drainage to the Central Valley of California and proceeded on west as far as Monterey, California—the Californio capital. See U.S. River maps-USGS for map of rivers followed across the United States.[7]. Between 1840 and 1860, the population of the United States rose by 14 million, yet only about 300,000 decided to make the trip. Before rescuers could arrive, 56 people died in freezing temperatures out of a company of about 600. About 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the rutted traces of these trails remain in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and California as historical evidence of the great mass migration westward. The Humboldt River Valley was key to forming a usable California Trail. 1850)[116] was an 80 miles (130 km) trail over the Sierra from today's Verdi, Nevada (Dog Valley) to Camptonville and Marysville, California. The only tools available to build and maintain roads then were hand tools: picks, shovels, crow bars, hoes, axes, wheelbarrows, hand saws, etc. needed. The trail was used by about 2,700 settlers from 1846 up to 1849. In many years it is estimated that there were more animals than people using the trail. Water had to be pooled off and allowed to cool before it could be used by man or beast. ), A second smaller but yet significant block of weather worn granite formed the Carson Range of mountains located east of today's Lake Tahoe, between the two ranges. This was the highest road developed across the Sierra—and still a very scenic drive. [112] One branch of the original Lincoln Highway over Donner summit built in about 1925 climbed the eastern Sierra to Donner Pass with multiple steep switchbacks. Cholera infections spread rampantly in the era before possible sources of cholera were identified, cholera carriers isolated and before effective water and sewage treatment facilities were developed and deployed.[61]. After crossing the difficult Forty Mile Desert they turned to the south on the east side of the Sierra until they reached the Walker River draining east out of the Sierra Nevada mountains. As the 1850s progressed and armed hostilities escalated in "bleeding" Kansas, travelers increasingly traveled up the Missouri River to leave from or near Omaha. In the present states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah, the California and Oregon trails split into several different trails or cutoffs. Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) traveled the route in the summer of 1861 with his brother Orion on their way to Nevada's new territorial capital in Carson City, Nevada, but provided only sparse descriptions of the road in his 1872 book "Roughing It". After extensive road work, paid for in part by Marysville, California commercial interests, freight could be shipped by steamboat to Marysville and picked up there for shipment over the Sierra. Ex-trappers, ex-army soldiers and Indians often used pemmican made by pounding jerky until it was a coarse meal, putting it into a leather bag and then pouring rendered fat (and sometimes pulverized dried berries) over it—this was very light weight, could keep for months and provided a lot of energy. The Carson Trail was a straightforward push to Placerville and the heart of the gold country and was a main route for emigrants for many years. [63] Before 1852 those on the North side ferried (or after about 1850 took a toll bridge) across the North Platte to the south side and Fort Laramie. After crossing the hot and dry Forty Mile Desert they passed through the Carson River Canyon across the Carson Range and ascended the Sierra Nevada.