Mile 1095: Parting of the Ways
"About 20 miles west of the Continental Divide, the main road forked at a spot called Parting of the Ways—a point of decision. From there, travelers could either follow the…
Mile 970: Independence Rock
"The great granite loaf of Independence Rock signaled temporary relief from the thirsty barrens, for it stands where the emigrant trail meets the Sweetwater River. Trail tradition held that reaching…
Mile 927: Emigrant Gap
"This leg of the trip, Emigrant Gap (today sometimes called the Poison Spider Route), was a bitter introduction to what lay ahead: long stretches of hot, hilly trail with little…
Mile 753: Crossing Fort Laramie
"Most travelers approached Fort Laramie from the main Oregon and California roads along the south bank of the North Platte River. This required fording a tributary, the Laramie River, just…
SPOT's tracking map
Staying in Touch
If all goes well (i.e., if I don’t fall again and break something between now and then), I will start from St. Joe on Monday, May 31, 2021 (Memorial Day).…
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May 11, 2021
The Role of the Traitor
"The traitor-whose presence will be foregrounded if he exists, and invented if he does not-serves at least two purposes. First, he is a foil created to further heighten the noble…
The Gratification of Slaying an Enemy
"In his correspondence with Einstein, Freud argued that each of us derives a very basic and profound gratification from slaying an enemy, however imaginary the act, and from viewing him…
The Custer Paradigm
"The Custer paradigm has nearly twenty segments, or motifs, within it. Yet the likelihood is that the creation of this paradigm was polygenetic; that is, each society, each author or…
The Vehicle of Liminality
"The train had other dramatic possibilities for use in folk and popular culture. It seems to have been for some observers in the nineteenth century in many ways like the…
Trail Narratives Celebrate Triumph
"But such exotica as Indians (exotic when not at war) and Mormons were not what Overland Trail stories were really about. What emerges is the danger, hardship, loneliness, and boredom…
Indians in Trail Narratives
"The Indians couldn't win. They were the "best light cavalry in the world" as one army officer praised them, but they had to resort to stealth and the cover of…
Typical Trail Narratives
"But Wilkins, as we said, differed from most of the diarists, whose experiences seemed almost predictable. Many seem to have read other personal experience accounts of the trail, or had…
Women’s Trail Diaries
"Another important distinction to be made in Overland Trail narrative – almost as significant as that between diary and memoir – is that between narratives written by men and those…
Infinite Wealth of the Land
"The idea that the wealth of the American West was inexhaustible drove prospectors back and forth across the plains, and fostered these legends about the life of the gold-hunters: their…
Pony Bob’s Silver Strike
"Often through pure dumb luck a rich strike is made. Pony Expressman Bob Haslam's horse unintentionally kicked a chip of silver from the Reese River field while fleeing from Indians.…