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…
Mile 753: Fort Laramie
"Fort Laramie, the American Fur Company's post near the junction of Laramie Creek and the Platte, was by far the largest and most celebrated post in this region and was…
Oregon Territorial Government
"In the summer of 1848, amid a popular outcry about Indian attacks, Congress created the Oregon Territory, the first territorial government west of the Rockies, and appropriated the funds to…
Mile 1403: East Rush Valley/Pass/Five Mile Pass/No Name Station
"East Rush Valley Station, built as a dugout, was listed by Howard Egan as being very active even though it is not identified as a contract station. The military road…
Mile 1392: Camp Floyd
"The station was located within John Carson's Inn in Fairfield and saw use for both the Express and stage travel. The adobe building was built in 1858. It is still…
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…
Dobytown
"Two miles west of Fort Kearney was the worst place on the entire overland route. A town had been laid out and christened 'Kearney City. (It was called 'Dobytown' for…
Fort Bridger
"Fort Bridger was quite a gay rendezvous on the Sunday we reached it, for besides ourselves and two companion trains, the place was enlivened by a score or two of mountaineers, and a…
Dobytown
"Two miles west of Kearny, the setlement of Dobytown sprouted, where entrepreneurs sold goods and liquor at inflated prices to plains travelers, traders, stage and freight drivers, and soldiers. They…
Establishing Camp Floyd
"Upon their arrival in Cedar Valley on July 8 [1858] the officers and men of the expedition established a military post which they appropriately called Camp Floyd, in honor of…
Winter Quarters
"With Fort Bridger as the northeastern anchor, the various units of the [Utah expedition] stretched up Black's Fork for a number of miles, the entire settlement assuming the name of…
Fort Bridger
"Jim Bridger always maintained that his strategically located fort had been stolen from him. The Mormons, he insisted, had never bought him out in 1853, as they had said, but…
Mormon Defensive Maneuvers
"On October 3 [1857], Wells and his advisors reached a number of important decisions under the threat of Alexander's rapid advance. First they resolved to destroy Fort Bridger and Fort…
Alexander and the Soda Springs Route
"We now moved camp every day or two on account of grass. In about two weeks Colonel Alexander1 came up with one thousand soldiers, but with no orders. The Mormons…
Mormons and the Green River Area
"[T]he uneasy situation in the Green River region worsened. Pursuing the Church's effort to extend its jurisdiction over the area, at the same time following its established practice of bestowing…