Fort Kearny Military Reservation
"It was customary for the War department to set aside a military resrvation of 100 square miles; here, in addition to the usual rectangular ten miles square, the reservation was…
Midpoint Between the Missouri River and Fort Laramie
"Fort Kearny was the true beginning of the Great Platte River Road, for it was here that various trail strands joined to become one grand highway for the western migrations.…
Miles Wide and Inches Deep
"The Platte resembled no river any of the emigrants had ever seen before, contradicting their idea of a 'normal' stream. It was miles wide and inches deep; thanks to Indian-set…
The Independence Road
"That section of the Oregon-California Trail commonly known in emigrant days as the Independence Road was first used by trading expeditions out of the Kansas City area in the 1830s.…
Council Bluffs—Omaha
"[E]arly in 1846, the advance guard of Mormon refugees from Illinois straggled down Indian Creek and Mosquito Creek into the Missouri River bottom below the old jesuit mission and knocked…
St. Joseph
"Joseph Robidoux, who established a trading post at the Blacksnake Hills about 1825, was a man of vision. He anticipated not only an influx of settlers, but also the need…
Cholera in Independence, MO
"The Asiatic cholera brought along by steamboat passengers from St. Louis was particularly deadly around Independence, and graves multiplied. This, coupled with the rivalry of neighboring Westport and the advantages…
Kansas City
"The complex of sites around Kansas City is the best known, partly because this area was the principal jump-off for the Oregon migration, partly because it was in the business…
The Superhighway of Westward Expansion
"The route from Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie was the superhighway of westward expansion. There were many 'jumping-off places' for emigrants along the Missouri River from Independence to Omaha, but…
Mile 1311-1322: Mountain Dell to Journey’s End
"[From Little Mountain] Seven miles yet intervened between these recklessly intermingled people and the City of the Great Salt Lake, most of them in narrow, rock-bound brushy Emigration Canyon. Between…
Mile 1235-1311: Henefer to Mountain Dell station
"Beyond [Henefer Creek's] headwaters, the great wagons rolled and thundered through Pratt's Pass on the summit of a low divide.Down another steep hill the wagons pitched while all hands and…
Soda Springs
"Lydia Waters came equipped with lemon extract and sugar and had an epicurean morning among the springs while her company lay over to recruit. She broke off some of the…
Mile 1193: Fort Bridger
"The majority of the migration arrived at Fort Bridger in the month of July. . . . The valley of Blacks Fork is beautiful out of all reason, like a…
Mile 1134 to 1160: Green River to Black’s Fork
"From the original Oregon trail crossing [about twenty miles upriver, near present-day Fontanelle], the early wagon trains converged toward what was later known as the Lombard ferry trail. the two…
Mile 1134: Green River
"The trouble with the Green River Desert was not lack of water. There was plenty, but it was all in the Green River—'by far the most formidable stream to be…