South Pass 1836
the last tangential touch of the Sweetwater, in the greenery of its shallow gully where it comes down out of the hills, and we know that it camped for the…
the last tangential touch of the Sweetwater, in the greenery of its shallow gully where it comes down out of the hills, and we know that it camped for the…
"To Milton Sublette belongs the honor of first having used commercial wagons on what has been later entitled the 'Oregon Trail.' He began the journey near the mouth of the Kansas River, followed…
"From Pacific Creek the modern road parallels the trail to Dry Sandy Creek. This disappointing watercourse is ordinarily all that its name implies; but we, like the Forty-niners, were regarding…
"All the time that my brain was wandering in this pleasant fog of confused ideas, my feet were carrying me out of the troubled times of '49 and into the…
"'We are hardly half way. I felt tired and weary. O the luxury of a house, a house! I felt what some one expressed who had traveled this long &…
"In the flat was a small marker for the site of old St. Mary's stage station, usually referred to as St. Mary's Crossing. Two buffalo horns, gray and scaly from…
"The amount of earth and sky in view at once was rather appalling. Something familiar about the situation kept ringing a bell in my memory, and suddenly I audibly recalled…
"It is all part and parcel of the unsatisfactory nomenclature of the trail that South Pass is by no means to the south. The descriptive title was first used by…
William Lander, chief engineer on the Lander Cutoff from South Pass to Fort Hall, stationed "an old mountaineer, Charles H. Miller, at the South Pass [for the winter] to make…
"From 1849 through 1860 approximately two-thirds of travelers bound for the Pacific Coast chose some other route than that through South Pass. Some 9,000 forty-niners and lesser numbers in subsequent…
"[Emigrants'] persistent demand was for a rapid, reliable, and regular overland mail to supplement the sea mail, the various private enterprises which periodically were attempted, and the army couriers, who…
"Most pre-Civil War overlanders found the U.S. government, through its armed forces, military installations, Indian agents, explorers, surveyors, road builders, physicians, and mail carriers, to be an impressively potent and…
"Though scattered references to easy passage over the Rockies had been appearing in newspapers for the previous decade, it was explorer John C. Frémont who ignited the South Pass enthusiasm…
"Medical missionary Samuel Parker traveled overland to Oregon in 1835, and in his Journal of an Exploring tour beyond the Rocky Mountains intimated that if an elderly minister of the…
“'From 1812 to 1848 travel up the Platte was only minimal to moderate, historian Merrill J. Mattes observed, 'with a grand total of around 5,000 to Salt Lake, 10,000 to…