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…
Little Blue Valley
“For years Marysville, Kansas, marked the end of the truly settled country; but the Little Blue Valley, so, charming and so fertile, sheltered a sort of border zone of ranches…
The Big Blue
“Except under abnormal conditions the camp site under these old trees [by the Big Blue] was an oasis, comfortable and even luxurious with fresh-water clams from the river, berries from…
mIle 917: Fort Casper
Site of Fort Caspar/Platte Bridge Station, Fort Caspar Museum, 1847 Mormon Ferry, and Guinard Bridge. Fort Casper was a focus of 19th century emigration, commercial, and military activity. In 1847, Brigham…
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…
Digger Indians
"And here [along the Humbolt River], if you were going to, you encountered the Diggers, their half-gram brains vibrating with the remembered murders of hundreds of kinsmen and with desire…
The Emigrant Trail
"In general, the route from Independence lay along the Santa Fe trail some forty miles, to the present site of Gardner, Kansas, where the famous sign pointed its finger northwest…
Drinking from Desert Wells
"the carson Route offered no advantage in crossing the Forty Mile Desert, though—in fact, it may have been worse. A few dug wells supplied some water ("intensely brackish, bitter with…
Period Rush
"As a channel evolves into ever more extreme loops, eventually two separate bends may approach one another and join. When this occurs, the river takes the shortcut and establishes a…
Rivers in the Great Basin
Scattter a few dozen stubby pencils onto a table. Turn each one in place so it points generally north or south. These are the mountain ranges of the Great Basin. Tempt…
Green River Crossing
"Whether they crossed the Green River Basin by the Sublette Cutoff or the trail to Fort Bridger, the Green River—several hundred feet wide and dangerously swift—lay as a barrier across the emigrants'…
Bridge Across the North Platte
"In 1851 Jean Baptiste Richard, a French mountain man, built a log toll bridge over the North Platte. In the spring of 1852, the snowmelt-charged river slapped it aside. Richard came back…
North Platte
"Emerging from Ash Hollow, the trains rolled on-ever west-along the south bank of the North Platte. "Its width is not so great [as the Platte]," Edwin Bryant observed, "but still it is…
Platte Water
"The water could be improved a bit by letting the mud settle out in a pail. ''Water poor white with clay of which the Platte and the Mo. [Missouri] are alike," Ameila Hadley…
Mile 1870: Reese River
"Below us, 'Reese's River' Valley might have served for a sketch in the African desert: a plain of saleratus, here yellow with sand or hay, there black with fire, there brown where the…