Gilman Ranch
The Gilman brothers had left the family homestead in Bartlett, New Hampshire, in 1854 and drifted west, stopping first in Iowa and then moving on to Nebraska. In the early summer of…
Jules Stretch
This stretch of the road, from Julesburg to "French Louie's" [Pole Creek Station] was known as the "Jules Stretch." The stretch of road going from the Pole Creek crossing and…
Mile 284: Lone Tree Station
“In time or course climbed slightly to a flat upland covered with grain. This was evidently Nine Mile Ridge, where in staging days stood Lone Tree Station. The solitary tree…
Mile 238: The Narrows
“According to our maps, “the Narrows” was the next place of interest. It is mainly notable because, at this point on the Little Blue, the emigrants seemed to forget all…
Mile 642: Bridgeport
"After Bridgeport, Nebraska, the landscape changed dramatically, from grasslands to spare, dry sagebrush country, and the soil turned from sandy brown to pink. We were entering the magic, pastel geology…
Mile 395: Cozad, NE
"In 1879 the explorer and geologist John Wesley Powell, later the director of the U.S. Geological Survey, established the 100th meridian as the "moisture line," often locally called the 'dry line,'…
Mile 238: The Narrows
"The regular correspondent of the St. Louis Missouri Democrat went over the line in June, 1861, and wrote from Denver to his paper (issue of July 9): 'Taking into consideration the distance…
Mile 438: Cottonwood Springs Station
"Usually known as Cottonwood Springs, which by 1863 had a very favorable reputation as a 'home station,' and was also a very good camping place for freighters, because of the abundance of…
Mile 197: Big Sandy Station
"A little after midnight we resumed our way, and in the state which Mohammed described when he made his famous night journey to heaven—bayni 'Z naumi wa 'I yakzan—we crossed the deep shingles,…
Mile 177: Rock Creek
"A weary drive over a rough and dusty road, through chill night air and clouds of musquetoes, which we were warned would accompany us to the Pacific slope of the Rocky Mountains,…
Lodgepole Creek
"Our Camp at Pole Creek the night' of November 4, 1864, was very bleak and dreary. Pole Creek was a vast trough in the plateau. It had a bed wide enough for…
Mile 580: Lodgepole Depot Museum
"The famous Pony Express mail delivery route passed through Lodgepole Creek Valley in 1860 and 1861. Two Pony Express stations were nearby. The Pole Creek No. 2 Pony Express Station…
Mile 432: Cottonwood Springs
"Cottonwood Springs was merely a seep in a gully which had been an old bed of the river, and which had curved up towards Cottonwood Canyon. The water-bed of the river being largely…
Mile 437: Cottonwood Springs
"The next day (13th) we passed by the celebrated 'Cotton-wood Springs' where, in the midst of a scattered grove of majestic cotton-woods, a clear stream gushes forth, famed for its coolness and purity.…