History of Nebraska - Chapter 3



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CHAPTER III
EARLY TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION -- THE OVERLAND STAGE -- THE PONY 
EXPRESS -- RIVER NAVIGATION -- FIRST RAILROAD AND TELEGRAPH

   TRAVEL and transportation, whose impetus is the desire for the exchange 
of ideas, personal impressions, and material goods, have always been the 
prime factors of civilization; and where travel and trade have been 
freest, civilization has reached its highest plane. There is as yet but 
scant knowledge of Indian or prehistoric routes of travel in Nebraska, and 
the subject is in the main a future field for students. One class of 
investigators insist that, on their longer journeys, Indians traveled by a 
sort of instinct and irregularity, and not by fixed or definite routes. 
Mr. Edward A. Killian in a discussion of the subject(1) quotes T. S. 
Huffaker, of Council Grove, Kansas, "who came to the frontier in 1846, as 
a missionary and teacher," as follows:

   When I first came among the Indians, now more than half a century ago, 
there were at that time no well-defined trails between the locations of 
the different tribes, but between the several bands of the same tribe, 
there were plain, beaten trails. Each band had a village of its own, and 
they continually visited each other. The different tribes would change 
their location perpetually, and never remain in one location long enough 
to mark any well-defined trails, in going from tribe to tribe.

   Mr. Killian argues that the conclusions to be drawn from the above 
statements are:

   That there were no permanent trails over the Plains in prehistoric 
times, as shown by the facts and conditions set forth herein, and there is 
neither evidence nor tradition for such an assumption. There probably were 
prehistoric routes, sometimes several miles in width, but no trails, roads 
or paths as understood by the use of these words at the present day. In a 
timbered or mountainous country, the case was different, and prehistoric 
trails existed.

   In a discussion of this subject in the same journal(2) Mr. A. T. 
Richardson quotes General G. M. Dodge, who became very familiar with the 
Plains country during the construction of the Union Pacific railroad:

   All over our continent there were permanent Indian trails; especially 
was this the case west of the Missouri river. There were regular trails 
from village to village, to well-known crossings of streams, up the 
valleys of great streams, over the lowest and most practicable divides, 
passing through the country where water could be obtained, and in the 
mountains the Indian trails were always well-defined through all the 
practicable passes. I traveled a great deal with the Indians myself at one 
time and when they started for any given point they always took a well-
established trail, unless they divided off for hunting, fishing, or 
something of that kind; and in my own reconnaissances in the West, and in 
my engineering parties, when we found Indian trails that led in the right 
direction for our surveys, we always followed them up and examined them, 
and always found that they took us to the best fords of streams, to the 
most practical crossings of divides, to the lowest passes in the 
mountains; and they were of great benefit to us, especially where we had 
no maps of the country, because we could lay them down and work from them 
as well-defined features of the country.

   Mr. Richardson also quotes the observation of Parkman, the historian, 
Rufus Sage, John C. Fremont as to the existence of distinct Pawnee trails 
on the Nebraska plains.The notations of the first surveyors of Nebraska 
show fragmentary Indian trails and roads of pioneer white men, because 
some of them marked their routes with regularity, while others did not. It 
will require the labo- 

(1. The Conservative, August 8, 1901, J. Sterling Morton, editor.)

(2. September 5, 1901.)

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rious work of special students to trace these Indian routes of travel, 
which undoubtedly existed well-defined and of various lengths, from the 
local trails radiating from the more or less permanent villages to those 
of an extent of several hundred miles, such as the well-known Pawnee 
routes from the habitat of that tribe along and north of the Platte valley 
to the hunting grounds of the Republican river country and even to the 
rivers farther south. When Major Long arrived at the Pawnee villages on 
the Loup river, he noted that the trail on which he had traveled from the 
Missouri had the appearance of being more frequented as he approached the 
Pawnee towns, and here, instead of a single pathway, it consisted of more 
than twenty parallel paths, of similar size and appearance.(3) Again he 
observes that the path leading to the Pawnee villages runs in a direction 
a little south of west from the cantonment (Long's winter quarters), and 
leads across a tract of high and barren prairie for the first ten miles. 
At this distance it crosses the Papillion, or Butterfly creek.(4)

   Charles Augustus Murray, in his account of his residence with the 
Pawnee Indians in 1835, describes the Indian mode of travel in masses:

   They move in three parallel bodies; the left wing consisting of part of 
the Grand Pawnees and the Tapages; the center of the remaining Grand 
Pawnees; and the right, of the Republicans . . . All these bodies move in 
"Indian file," though of course, in the mingled mass of men, women, 
children, and packhorses, it is not very regularly observed; nevertheless, 
on arriving at the halting-place, the party to which I belonged invariably 
camped at the eastern extremity of the village, the great chief in the 
center and the Republicans (Tapages) on the western side; and this 
arrangement was so well kept that after I had been a few days with them I 
could generally find our lodge in a new encampment with very little 
trouble, although the village consisted of about 600 of them, all nearly 
similar in appearance.(5)

   Murray recounts a remarkable feat of traveling by an individual Indian. 
His party started from Fort Leavenworth to the Pawnee villages with a 
party of Pawnees who had gone on ahead:

   A runner had been sent forward to request the chiefs to make a short 
halt in order to give our party time to come up. This Indian had walked at 
the head of the party as guide during the whole day's journey, which 
occupied nearly 24 hours. When we halted, Sani-tsa-rish went up to him and 
spoke a few words, upon which, without rest or food, he tightened the belt 
around his middle and set off at a run, which he must have maintained 
upwards of 20 miles. He had to traverse the same ground coming back, and 
thus he must have gone over 100 miles of ground without food or rest in 24 
hours . . . We found the Indian regulations for traveling very fatiguing, 
namely, starting at four A. M., with nothing to eat, and tarveling till 
one, when we halted for breakfast and dinner at one time . . . and on the 
20th (July, 1835). we traveled from half past three in the morning till 
half past eight in the evening . . . A war party leaves only the trail of 
the horses, or, of course, if it be a foot party, the still lighter tracks 
of their own feet; but when they are on their summer hunt or migrating 
from one region to another, they take their squaws and children with them 
and this trail can always be distinguished from the former by two parallel 
tracks about three and a half feet apart not unlike those of a light pair 
of wheels; these are made by the points of the long curved poles on which 
their lodges are stretched, the thickest or butt ends of which are 
fastened to each side of the pack-saddle, while the points trail behind 
the horse; in crossing rough or boggy places this is often found the most 
inconvenient part of an Indian camp equipage.(6)

   Mr. Murray makes an interesting observation as to the quantity of game 
on the prairies of northeastern Kansas over which he was traveling:

   No game had been seen or killed (since starting from Fort Leavenworth), 
and every hour's experience tended to convince me of the exaggerated 
statements with which many western travelers have misled the civilized 
world in regard to the game of these prairies. I had now been traveling 
five days through them, and with the exception of a few grouse and the 
fawn I shot, had not seen anything eatable, either bird or quadruped.

   The Santa Fe Trail. Whether or not the famous Santa Fe trail was 
established or used 

(3. Long's First Expedition, vol. i, p. 435.)

(4. Ibid., p. 427.)

(5. Travels in North America, vol. i, pp. 282-283.)

(6. Ibid., pp. 273-274; vol. ii, p. 32.)

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by Indians in the general sense indicated by the name, before it was 
surveyed under authority of the federal government, not long after 1820, 
is a mooted question. The first wagon train over this trail started from 
Westport, Missouri, its initial point, in 1828. This road was established 
for communication between the Missouri river and the settlements of New 
Mexico.

   The Oregon Trail. The Oregon trail was the most notable route of its 
kind in the country. It may be called fairly a social institution, for 
like other social institutions it was not made but grew, and its growth 
was simply the result of human movement along the lines of least 
resistance. By 1843, it had become a well-defined route for trade and 
other traffic between a great base, St. Louis, and a great objective 
point, the mouth of the Columbia river. The general line of this trail had 
been used by the Indians, though in a piecemeal fashion, from time 
immemorial. It was left to true emigrants and travelers, the whites, to 
develop it into a continuous route. While St. Louis was the real southern 
terminus of the route, the overland trail began at Franklin, Missouri, two 
hundred and five miles above the mouth of the Missouri river. In the 
course of ten years Independence, situated near the mouth of the Kansas, 
had superseded Franklin as the initial point of the land route, and in a 
few years the river had carried away the Independence landing, so that 
Westport, now within the boundary of Kansas City, became the starting 
point. It is true that the first traffic by way of Franklin and 
Independence which began about 1820, was with Santa Fe, and it is not 
possible to say when travel over the eastern end of the Oregon trail 
began. In July, 1819, Long's party noted that Franklin, "at present 
increasing more rapidly than any other town on the Missouri, had been 
commenced but two years and a half before the time of our journey." This 
indicates a considerable trade with Santa Fe and Missouri posts, and also 
its recent growth. Long's journalist uttered a prophecy as to the fate of 
Franklin which was to be verified in a very realistic manner, for the town 
was swept away not many years after. The chronicler said: "The bed of the 
river near the shore has been heretofore obstructed by sandbars which 
prevented large boats from approaching the town; whether this evil will 
increase or diminish it is not possible to determine, such is the want of 
stability in everything belonging to the channel of the Missouri. It is 
even doubtful whether the site of Franklin will not at some future day be 
occupied by the river which at this time seems to be encroaching on its 
banks."

   Hunt's Astorian expedition (1811), as we have seen, did not follow the 
eastern line of the trail, but ascended the Missouri river to the Arikara 
villages. But it did follow the trail from the junction of Port Neuf river 
with the Snake. There appears to be no authentic account of the passage of 
this route by white men before Hunt, and to his party belongs the credit 
of having discovered and established it. Certain writers incline to 
belittle Hunt's ability and achievement, but he should have the credit of 
reaching the Columbia from the point where he struck the Wind River or 
Bighorn mountains, near the present Jackson's Hole, by original 
investigation and experimental exploration of a very difficult character. 
There was absolutely no pathway to the Columbia river, and the Indians at 
the head-waters of the Snake river were ignorant of any way to reach it. 
On their return Stuart and Crooks followed the general course of the 
Oregon trail to Grand Island, Nebraska, with the exception of a detour in 
southeastern Idaho. Bonneville certainly, and Wyeth probably, passed over 
the cut-off from Independence to Grand island in 1832, and, as far as is 
known, Bonneville's was the first wagon train over this end of the trail. 
These appear to be the first authenticated journeys by the cutoff. A 
fairly accurate itinerary of the trail has been made from notes of Fremont 
and other travelers as follows: From Independence for the distance of 41 
miles it is identical with the Santa Fe trail; to the Kansas river, 81 
miles; to the Big Blue river, 174 miles; to Little Blue, 242 miles; head 
of the Little Blue 296 miles; Platte river, 316 miles; lower ford of South 
Platte river 433 miles; upper ford of

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South Platte, 493 miles; Chimney Rock, 571 miles; Scott, Bluff, 616 miles. 
Adding the distance from the northwest boundary of Nebraska to Fort 
Vancouver, the terminus, yields a total of 2,020 miles. The trail crossed 
the present Nebraska line at or very near the point of the intersection of 
the 97th meridian and about four miles west of the southeast corner of 
Jefferson county. It left the Little Blue at a bend beyond this point, but 
reached it again just beyond Hebron. It left the stream finally at a point 
near Leroy, and reached the Platte river about twenty miles below the 
western or upper end of Grand island. Proceeding along the south bank of 
the Platte, it crossed the south fork about sixty miles from the junction, 
and touched the north fork at Ash creek, twenty miles beyond the south 
fork crossing.

   In 1820 Major S. H. Long crossed the Platte from the north side, There 
was evidently no fixed or well-known ford at that time for this noted 
explorer informs us that he was led to the fording place of the north fork 
through animal instinct:

   We had halted here, (at the confluence of the forks) and were making 
preparations to examine the north fork: with a view of crossing it, when 
we saw two elk plunge into the river a little above us on the same side. 
Perceiving it was their design to cross the river we watched them until 
they arrived on the other side which they did without swimming. We 
accordingly chose the same place they had taken, and putting a part of our 
baggage in a skin canoe, waded across, leading our horses, and arrived 
safely on the other side.

   Major Long crossed the neck between the two forks diagonally and forded 
the south fork at or near the place of the subsequent lower ford.(7)

   Travel by emigrants across the Plains by the great trail to Caifornia 
and Oregon, chiefly to the latter, set in appreciably in 1844.

   Francis Parkman, who left St. Louis in the spring of 1846, on a tour of 
curiosity and amusement to the Rocky mountains, found "the old legitimate 
trail of the Oregon emigrants" at the junction of the St. Joseph trail, 
and in that year both Parkman and Bryant found a heavy travel of emigrants 
to Oregon and California over the trail. The latter reports that his party 
met five men between the lower and upper ford of the Platte, going 
eastward, who had counted 470 west-bound emigrant wagons in coming from 
Fort Laramie; and they were "about equally divided between California and 
Oregon."(8)

   Before the high tide of traffic to the California gold fields set in, 
in 1849, there were two principal places where the large general travel to 
Oregon and California crossed the Platte known as the lower ford and the 
upper ford. Irving, in his Adventures of Captain Bonneville, pays more 
attention to literary form than to exact narrative and statement of the 
facts, much to the present historian's regret. We learn from him only that 
Bonneville traveled two days from the junction to his crossing of the 
south fork, and nine miles from that crossing to the north fork. No 
mention is made of a lower ford, and his crossing place was probably some 
distance east of the later common upper ford. We are told that when he 
arrived at the forks, "finding it impossible from quicksands and other 
dangerous impediments to cross the river in this neighborhood, he kept up 
along the south fork for two days merely seeking a safe fording place."(9)

   Fremont on his outward trip, in 1842, made this record: "I halted about 
forty miles from the junction . . . Our encampment was within a few miles 
of the place where the road crossed to the north fork."

   Joel Palmer of Indiana, who started with a party from Independence, 
Missouri, May 6, 1845, returning in 1846, makes the following explicit 
statement:

   The lower crossing of the Platte river is five or six miles above the 
forks and where the high ground commences between the two streams . . . 
There is a trail which turns over the bluff to the left; we, however, took 
the right and crossed the river. The south fork is at this place about one-
fourth mile wide and from one to three feet deep, with a sandy bottom 
which made the fording so heavy that we were compelled to double teams.(10)

(7. Long's First Expedition, vol. i, p. 463.)

(8. What I Saw in California, p. 94.)

(9. Adventures of Captain Bonneville, p. 53.)

(10 Journal of Travel Over the Rocky Mountains to the Mouth of the 
Columbia River, p. 22.)

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   Nineteen miles from the forks, "the road between the two forks strikes 
across the ridge toward the north fork. Directly across, the distance does 
not exceed four miles; but the road runs obliquely and reaches the north 
fork nine miles from our last camp" -- the place of leaving the south 
fork. "At Ash Hollow the trail which follows the east side of the south 
fork of the Platte from where we crossed it connects with this trail." 
Palmer's itinerary has this record: "From lower to upper crossing of south 
fork, forty-five miles."

   Edwin Bryant, who traveled by the Oregon trail from Independence to the 
Pacific coast in 1846, crossed the south fork thirty-five miles west of 
the junction, according to his measurement, but he states that "the 
distance from the south to the north fork of the Platte by the emigrant 
trail is about twenty-two miles, without water,"(11) which would place the 
upper ford approximately where Palmer and Stansbury found it.

   Howard Stansbury, a captain of United States topographical engineers, 
was ordered, April 11, 1849, to lead an expedition to Great Salt Lake for 
the purpose of surveying the lake and exploring the valley. His 
description and measurements of the route are made with a clearness and 
precision characteristic of the trained engineer. He started from Fort 
Leavenworth on the 31st of May. He notes that a "Boston company's train," 
which traveled in advance of his party, crossed the South Platte twenty 
miles above the forks; but he "preferred to follow still further the main 
road," crossing sixty-six miles above the lower ford, or seventy-two miles 
above the forks. He says specifically: "This is the upper ford and easily 
crossed in low stages of the river, width, 700 yards."(12) By his 
measurement it was eighteen and a half miles from the crossing to the 
north fork at Ash Hollow. On his return trip in October, 1850, he notes 
that at Ash Hollow "the road leaves for the south fork, and the ridge is 
crossed by several two tracks; one leads to the junction of the forks, 
ours to the upper crossing of the south fork."(13) He finds the distance 
the same as in the outgoing trip, so that this part of the trail seems to 
have been well-defined and permanent at that time.

   William Kelly, an English traveler, who passed up the trail in 1849, 
crossed the Platte at the upper ford. He describes the route between the 
two forks of the river as follows:

   About half way between the forks we got upon the summit of the hills 
that divide, where driving became rather a nerve-testing operation; the 
only practicable path being along a ridge with a declivity amounting to a 
precipice on each side, and so narrow that it did not admit of a man's 
walking alongside to lay hold of the leaders in case of need; but this 
very circumstance, I believe, contributed to our safety, as the sagacity 
of the mule convinced him that there was no alternative but to go on 
cautiously. Not a voice was hear for a couple of miles, every mind being 
occupied with a sensation of impending danger, for in some places the 
trail was so edge-like that even some of the horsemen alit, under the 
influence of giddiness.(14)

   The descent into Ash Hollow was precipitous. In undertaking it all but 
the wheelspan of mules were taken off, the wheels were locked, and the men 
undertook to steady the progress of the wagon by holding it back with a 
rope. The rope broke, and the wagon slid or fell upon the mules, killing 
one and injuring the other.

   Stansbury found the distance from Leavenworth to the meeting of the St. 
Jo and Independence road about forty-six miles. He seems to have left the 
Little Blue at the usual point, near the present Leroy, Adams county, 
where the trail cut across to Thirty-two Mile creek, seven and a half 
miles; thence to the Platte river, twelve miles; and to Fort Kearney, 
seventeen miles. He tells us that he struck the Platte in a broad valley 
and that, "'this road has since (June 18, 1849) been abandoned for one on 
the left, more direct to Fort Kearney."(15)

   Joel Palmer in his itinerary gives the following distances on the 
Oregon trail:

   The distance from St. Joseph, Missouri, to 

(11. What I Saw in California, p. 97.)

(12. Stansbury's Expedition, p. 272.)

(13. Ibid., p. 289.)

(14. Across the Rocky Mountains, p. 106.)

(15. Stansbury's Expedition, p. 272.)

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the Independence trail, striking it ten miles west of Blue river, is about 
100 miles; from the forks of these roads to the Big Sandy, striking it 
near its junction with the Republican river, 42 miles; from the Big Sandy 
to the Republican fork of Blue river,(16) 18 miles; up the Republican 
river, 53 miles; from the Republican to the Platte, 20 miles; up the 
Platte, to the crossing of the south fork, 120 miles; from the lower to 
the upper crossing of the south fork, 45 miles.

   Mr. Palmer here observes that there is a road on each side of the river 
and but little choice in them. From the south to the north fork at Ash 
Hollow, 20 miles; thence to a point opposite Solitary Tower, on Little 
creek, 42 miles; thence to a point opposite Chimney Rock, 16 miles; thence 
to a point where the road crosses the river, 15 miles; thence to Scotts 
Bluff, 10 miles; thence to Horse creek, 12 miles; thence to Fort Laramie, 
24 miles.

   Palmer followed the Little Blue, which he evidently miscalled the 
Republican fork of the Blue, and then went over to the Big Platte, the 
usual twenty miles, and thence to the crossing of the south fork, one 
hundred and twenty miles.

   While all of these travelers followed substantially the same route 
through Nebraska, yet, either through their own carelessness or because 
the names of the streams, in the earlier part of the course especially, 
were not certain or fixed, they greatly confused them. The schedule 
distance between the Vermillion and the Big Blue was about fourteen miles, 
and yet Kelly traveled several days and crossed two other streams, each of 
which he felt certain was the important one in question, before he came to 
the fine river which he definitely decided was worthy of the name of Big 
Blue. The length of the route up the Little Blue valley in all was about 
seventy miles, though it left the stream where important bends or easier 
going required. If Bryant is accurate in his statement, he traveled twenty-
seven miles from the Little Blue to the Platte river, which he reached 
about twelve miles below the head of Grand island.

   Palmer, Kelly, and Stansbury reached the Platte only a few miles below 
the head of the island; but Captain Bonneville reached it twenty-five 
miles below.

   The old California crossing, which was substantially identical with the 
"upper ford," was twenty-seven miles east of the upper California crossing 
at old Julesburg, opposite the mouth of Lodge Pole creek. In the year 
1859, a Frenchman from St. Louis, called Beauvais, established a trading 
post at the old California crossing, which on that account came to be 
called Beauvais' ranch. There was very little travel by the upper 
California route until the daily mail was established in 1861, which 
crossed at old Julesburg. After crossing the Platte, this route followed 
Lodge Pole creek as far as Thirty-mile ridge which ran toward the north 
fork. It continued along this ridge by way of Mud Springs, reaching the 
North Platte near Court House Rock. The earlier and great crossing was on 
the main Oregon trail, and was commonly known as the Ash Hollow route. The 
Mormon trail, which was established by the Mormon exodus, followed the 
north side of the Platte all the way from Florence to the crossing beyond 
Fort Laramie.

   At least before Fort Kearney was established, Ash Hollow was the most 
important and interesting point on the trail, this side of Fort Laramie, 
after it struck the Platte river. Owing to Irving's vagueness we can not 
be sure that he was describing that delectable place in recording Captain 
Bonneville's progress: "They reached a small but beautiful grove from 
which issued the confused notes of singing birds, the first they had heard 
since crossing the boundary of Missouri"; but circumstances almost warrant 
that conclusion. Palmer relates that "the road then turns down Ash Hollow 
to the river; a quarter of a mile from the latter is a fine spring, and 
around it wood and grass in abundance."

   Stansbury, seeing with the scientific eye and writing with the trained 
hand, has left us an invaluable description of the crossing between the 
two forks and of Ash Hollow itself:

   Today we crossed the ridge between the 

(16. The Republican river is not a fork of the Blue but of the Kansas; 
moreover, he mistook the Little Blue for the Republican.)

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North and South forks of the Platte, a distance of eighteen and a half 
miles. As we expected to find no water for the whole of this distance, the 
India-rubber bags were filled with a small supply. The road struck 
directly up the bluff, rising quite rapidly at first, then very gradually 
for twelve miles, when we reached the summit, and a most magnificent view 
saluted the eye. Before and below us was the North Fork of the Nebraska, 
winding its way through broken hills and green meadows; behind us the 
undulating prairie rising gently from the South Fork, over which we had 
just passed; on our right, the gradual convergence of the two valleys was 
distinctly perceptible; while immediately at our feet were the heads of 
Ash Creek, which fell off suddenly into deep precipitous chasms on either 
side, leaving only a high narrow ridge or back bone, which gradually 
descended, until, toward its western termination, it fell off 
precipitately into the bottom of the creek. Here we were obliged, from the 
steepness of the road, to let the wagons down by ropes, but the labor of a 
dozen men for a few days would make the descent easy and safe. The bottom 
of Ash Creek is tolerably well wooded, principally with ash and some dwarf 
cedars. The bed of the stream was entirely dry, but toward the mouth 
several springs of delightfully cold and refreshing water were found, 
altogether the best that has been met with since leaving the Missouri. We 
encamped at the mouth of the valley, here called Ash Hollow. The traces of 
the great tide of emigration that had preceded us were plainly visible in 
remains of camp-fires, in blazed trees covered with innumerable names 
carved and written on them; but, more than all, in the total absence of 
all herbage . . . On the slope towards the South Fork the valleys are wide 
and long with gracefully curved lines, gentle slopes, and broad hollows . 
. . . Almost immediately after crossing the point of "divide," we strike 
upon the headwaters of Ash Creek, whence the descent is abrupt and 
precitous [sic]. Immediately at your feet is the principal ravine, with 
sides four or five hundred feet in depth, clothed with cedar. Into this 
numerous other ravines run, meeting it at different angles, and so 
completely cutting up the earth, that scarcely a foot of level ground 
could be seen. The whole surface consisted of merely narrow ridges 
dividing the ravines from each other, and running up to so sharp a crest 
that it would be difficult for anything but a mountain-goat to traverse 
their summits with impunity. Never before had I seen the wonderful effects 
of the action of water on a grand scale more strikingly exemplified.(17)

   In his return itinerary this traveler observes that, "Ash Hollow has 
abundance of ash and poplar wood, a small stream in the bottom"; there 
were "cedars in the hills for camping purposes."(18)

   Kelly, who wrote with more literary spirit than any of the others of 
these travelers, was yet possessed of a degree of English surliness which, 
however, the charms of the Hollow overcame entirely for the nonce, and he 
dropped deep into poetry:

   Two more moderate descents brought us into a lovely wooded dell, so 
watered and sheltered that vegetation of every description appeared as if 
stimulated by a hot house compared with that on the open prairie. The 
modest wild rose, foregetting its coyness in the leafy arbours, opened out 
its velvet bosom, adding its fragrant bouquet to that of the various 
scented flowers and shrubs that formed the underwood of the majestic ash-
trees, which confer a name upon the spot, producing a perfectly aromatic 
atmosphere. Cool streams, filtered through the adjoining hills, prattled 
about, until they merged their murmurs in a translucent pond, reposing in 
the center of a verdant meadow, a perfect parterre, the bespangled carpet 
of which looked the congenial area for the games and gambols for the light-
tripping beings of fairy-land.(19)

   But three years before Bryant saw only these prosy commonplaces: "We 
descended into the valley of the North fork of the Platte, through a pass 
known as 'Ash Hollow.' This name is derived from a few scattering ashtrees 
in the dry ravine, through which we wind our way to the river bottom. 
There is but one steep or difficult place for wagons in the pass. I saw 
wild currants and gooseberries near the mouth of Ash Hollow. There is here 
also a spring of pure cold water." Bryant found a small log cabin, near 
the month of the Hollow, which had been erected during the last winter by 
some trappers on their way to the East. This cabin had been turned by the 

(17. Stansbury's Expedition to the Great Salt Lake, pp. 40-41.)

(18. Ibid., p. 289.)

(19. Across the Rocky Mountains, p. 107.)

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emigrants into a sort of voluntary general postoffice. Many advertisements 
in manuscript were posted on the walls outside. These included 
descriptions of lost horses, cattle, etc.; and inside, in a recess, there 
were a large number of letters addressed to persons in every part of the 
world, with requests that those who passed would convey them to the 
nearest postoffice in the states. "The place had something of an air of a 
cross roads settlement, and we lingered around it some time, reading the 
advertisements and looking over the letters."(20)

   The reader will be inclined to credit Bryant's description with 
orthodoxy in the knowledge that the susceptible Englishman was also thrown 
into a fit of esthetic hysteria at the sight of a party of Sioux squaws 
whom he had seen a few days before

   The women were extremely beautiful, with finely-chiselled features, 
dark lustrous eyes, raven locks and pearly teeth, which they disclosed in 
gracious smiles that lit up their lovely faces with a most bewitching 
radiance. They wore no head dress; their luxuriant tresses, divided with 
the most scrupulous accuracy flowing in unconfined freedom over their 
shoulders. Their attire consisted of a tanned buckskin bodice, not over 
tight, . . . to which was appended a short full skirt of the same material 
which did not reach the knees. The legs were concealed by close leathern 
hose which revealed the most exquisite symmetry, embroidered on the sides 
with beads, meeting above the taper ankles a laced moccasin, worked up the 
instep in the same manner; and over all was thrown with a most graceful 
negligence, a blanket of snowy whiteness, so arranged as to form a hood in 
an instant. They also wore large ear drops and had the fingers up to the 
joints covered with rings. There was one dear girl amongst the group that 
I was fairly smitten with, to whom I presented a small looking-glass, 
taking leave to kiss the tips of her delicate fingers as she graciously 
accepted it, at which she smiled, as if understanding silent but 
expressive mode of admiration; and taking off a ring caught hold of my 
hand to put it on; an operation I playfully protracted by cramping my 
fingers, that I might prolong the pleasure of contact with so charming a 
creature.(21)

   Court House Rock. The next notable landmark on the trail was Court 
House Rock, which Stansbury describes as "two bald elevations -- to which 
the voyageurs, most of whom are originally from St. Louis, had given this 
name, from a fancied resemblance to a well known structure in-their own 
city." It was some distance south of the road and the river.(22)

   When Samuel Parker, the missionary, passed Court House Rock in 1835, 
traveling on the opposite, or north side of the river, it was evidently 
without a name that was at all familiar, for he spoke of it as "a great 
natural curiosity, which, for the sake of a name, I shall call the old 
castle." Its situation was on a plain some miles distant from any elevated 
land, and by his estimate covered more than an acre of ground and was more 
than fifty feet high. It is tolerably certain from his description that 
this curiosity was what Bryant, in 1846, knew and described as Court House 
Rock. This traveler went a distance, which he estimated at seven miles 
from the trail, toward the rock without reaching it, and it appeared to 
him to be from three hundred to five hundred feet in height and about a 
mile in circumference.(23)

   Parker describes the remarkable formations in this neighborhood in 
general:

   We passed many uncommonly interesting bluffs composed of indurated 
clay; many of them very high, with perpendicular sides, and of almost 
every imaginable form. Some appeared like strong fortifications with high 
citadels, some like stately edifices with lofty towers. I had never before 
seen anything like them of clay formation. And what adds to their beauty 
is that the clay of which they are composed is nearly white. Such is the 
smoothness and whiteness of the perpendicular sides and offset, and such 
the regularity of their straight and curved lines, that one can hardly 
believe that they are not the work of art.(24)

   At the time of Palmer's trip in 1845, however, the rock was called 
Solitary Tower, and that traveler tells us that it was "a stupendous pile 
of sand and clay, so cemented as to resemble stone but which crumbles away 
at the slightest touch." According to this 

(20. What I Saw in California, pp. 97-98.)

(21. Across the Rocky Mountains, pp. 97-98.)

(22. Stansbury's Expedition, p. 48.)

(23. What I Saw in California, p. 100.)

(24. Journal of an Exploring Tour, p. 63.)

Page 70

author it was situated about seven miles from the river, and was six 
hundred to eight hundred feet above the level of the stream. A stream of 
water ran along the northeast side some twenty rods from the rock.

   Kelly, we may surmise, was still too much possessed with the charms of 
the Sioux squaws to have any eye for this inanimate object; and he 
dismisses the tradition that the rock was named "from its supposed 
resemblance to a large public building of that description," with the 
remark that "there was nothing about it of that striking character to 
seduce me from my path so far aside to visit it." Its location, according 
to this traveler, was six miles from the river.(25)

   Captain Bonneville describes the next wonder of this mountain region of 
Nebraska thus: "It is called the Chimney. The lower part is a conical 
mound, rising out of the naked plain; from the summit shoots up a shaft or 
column, about 120 feet in height, from which it derives its name . . . It 
is a compound of indurated clay, with alternate layers of red and white 
sandstone, and may be seen at a distance upwards of 30 miles." According 
to this authority the total height of this formation was then one hundred 
and seventy-five yards.(26) Fremont records that, "It consists of marl and 
earthy limestone and the weather is rapidly diminishing its height, which 
is now not more than 200 feet above the river. Travelers who visited it 
some years since placed its height at upwards of five hundred feet."(27) 
It looked to him from a distance of about thirty miles like the long 
chimney of a steam

[image caption: Engraving front photograph by John Wright, Staff Artist.
COURT HOUSE ROCK AND JAIL SHOWING GULLIES LEADING TO BASE]

factory establishment or a shot tower in Baltimore.

   Palmer describes it as "a sharp-pointed rock of much the same material 
of the solitary tower standing at the base of the bluff an four or five 
miles from the road." As Stansbury saw it, this Nebraska wonder "consists 
of a conical elevation of about 100 feet high, its sides forming an angle 
of about 45 degrees with the horizon; from the apex rises a nearly 
circular and perpendicular shaft of clay, now from thirty- five to forty 
feet in height."(28) This author here remarks that young pines were taking 
the place of red cedars, the latter dying off. This is in accordance with 
the 

(25. Across the Rocky Mountains, pp. 108-109.)

(26. Adventures of Captain Bonneville, p. 55.)

(27. First and Second Expeditions, p. 38.)

(28. Stansbury's Expedition, p. 51.)

Page 71

[image caption: Engraving from photograph by John Wright, Staff Artist.
CHIMNEY ROCK. In November, 1904, members of the editorial staff of this 
History made an examination of the picturesque part of the Oregon trail in 
Nebraska -- between Ash Hollow and Scotts Bluff -- and took the photograph 
here reproduced. Chimney Rock, a land-mark easily seen thirty miles 
distant, is two and one-half miles south of Bayard. The area of its dome-
like base is upwards of forty acres. Drawings by the early travelers 
including Fremont, represent the Chimney as cylindrical. It is in fact 
rectangular, like the chimney of a modern house. Court House Rock--
engraving on opposite page--is about five miles south of Bridgeport. 
Pumpkin Seed creek, a clear and rapidly flowing stream, about two yards 
wide, runs close to the southern and western base, which rises abruptly 
from the level valley, then doubles back about sixty yards, thus enclosing 
a section of an ellipse. The jail, so called from its association with the 
Court House, is about forty yards east of the latter, and its eastern 
front is a remarkably symmetrical circular tower. Labyrinthine water 
courses have been cut through the base of these rocks which cover upwards 
of eighty acres. Toward the creek they are from twenty to thirty feet in 
depth, and the rushing waters have smoothed their walls almost to a 
polish. These remarkable elevations were formed by the action of water 
cutting away the less durable contiguous rock. The material of which they 
are composed is somewhat harder, and lighter in color than the clay-banks 
along the Missouri river. Letters cut in them fifty years ago remain 
unimpaired, and it does not appear that they have been much diminished in 
height during that time. Buffalo grass grows up to the beginning of the 
steep sides.]

Page 72

present tendency of the pine growth to extend from that part of the state 
eastward, as observed by our botanists. Parker observes that, "It has been 
called the Chimney; but I should say it ought to be called Beacon Hill, 
from its resemblance to what was Beacon Hill in Boston." He found the base 
of the rock three miles from the river. "This Beacon Hill has a conical 
formed base of about half a mile in circumference, and one hundred and 
fifty feet in height, and above this is a perpendicular column, twelve 
feet square, and eighty feet in height; making the whole height about two 
hundred and thirty feet. We left our horses at the base, and ascended to 
the perpendicular. It is formed of indurated clay or marl, and in some 
parts is petrified. It is of a light chocolate or rufous colour, in some 
parts white. Near the top were some handsome stalactites, at which my 
assistant shot, and broke off some pieces of which I have taken a small 
specimen."(29)

   Kelly is a sceptic in his view of Chimney Rock also:

   To my eye, there is not a single lineament in its outline to warrant 
the christening. The Wellington testimonial in the Phoenix Park, elevated 
on a Danish fort, would give a much more correct idea of its 
configuration, though not of its proportions. It is, I should say, 500 
feet high, composed of soft red sandstone, standing out from the adjoining 
cliffs, not so much the result of a violent spasm of nature, as of the 
wearing and wasting effects of the watery storms that prevail in those 
forlorn regions. It appears to be fast chipping and crumbling away, and I 
have no doubt that, ere half a century elapses, Troja fuit will apply to 
the Chimney Rock.(30)

   Bryant places Chimney Rock three miles from the Platte river, and says 
that it is several hundred feet in height from base to apex and can be 
seen in a clear atmosphere at a distance of forty miles. "The column which 
represents the chimney will soon crumble away and disappear entirely. The 
scenery to the right of the rock as we face it from the river is 
singularly picturesque and interesting. There are four high elevations of 
architectural configuration, one of which would represent a distant view 
of the ruins of the Athenian Acropolis; another, the crumbling remains of 
an Egyptian temple; a third, a Mexican pyramid; the fourth, the mausoleum 
of one of the Titans. In the background the bluffs arc worn into such 
figures as to represent ranges of castles and palaces."(31)

   Scotts Bluff. Captain Bonneville observed that Scotts Bluff was 
composed of indurated clay, with alternate layers of red and white 
sandstone, and might be seen at a: distance of upwards of thirty miles; 
and Irving calls attention to "the high and beetling cliffs of indurated 
clay and sandstone bearing the semblance of towers, castles, churches, and 
fortified cities."

   Palmer found a good spring and abundance of wood and grass at Scotts 
Bluff. Parker describes these bluffs as "the termination of a high range 
of land running from south to north. They are very near the river, high 
and abrupt, and what is worthy of notice, there is a pass through the 
range a short distance back from the river, the width of a common road 
with perpendicular sides two or three hundred feet high. It appears as 
though a part of the bluffs had been cut off, and moved a few rods to the 
north."(32)

   Kelly relates that his party cried out, "Mount Ararat; Mount Ararat, at 
last!" at first sight of the bluff. "As we got on the elevated ground we 
could see that the bluffs took a, curve like the tail of a shepherd's 
crook; a prominent eminence forming the curl at the end. This is called 
Scotts Bluff, from the body of an enterprising trapper of that name being 
found upon it."(33)

   Stansbury records that "these bluffs are about five miles south of the 
river. The road up the bluffs steep, but on good, hard, gravelly ground. A 
small spring at the top of the first hill."(34)

   One Robidoux had a trading post and blacksmith's shop there; and when 
the smith was not inclined to work he rented the shop at seventy-five 
cents an hour to emigrants who 

(29. Journal of an Exploring Tour, pp. 64-65.)

(30. Across the Rocky Mountains, p. 110.)

(31. What I Saw in California, pp. 101-102.)

(32. Journal of an Exploring Tour, p. 66.)

(33. Across the Rocky Mountains, p. 112.)

(34. Stansbury's Expedition, p. 272.)

Page 73

[image caption: Photographs by John Wright, Staff Artist. SCOTTS BLUFF AND 
VICINITY. Scotts Bluff, the most imposing in appearance of all the 
elevations in the Platte valley, is three miles south of the town of that 
name and two miles west of Gering. The upper and next to the lower 
pictures show the Bluff, the Tower, and Mitchell's Pass, the route of the 
Oregon trail between them, looking west from Gering. The upper picture on 
the right was taken at midnight by the light of the moon, after an 
exposure of an hour and a half (photo by H. A. Mark). To the left of it is 
the Tower alone. The second picture from the top is a view of the Bluff 
from the east side, an irrigation canal in the foreground. At the bottom 
is the bridge at Camp Clarke, built in 1876, for the Black Hills traffic, 
by Henry T. Clarke with the aid of other enterprising citizens of Omaha, 
leading freighters, and the Union Pacific railroad company.]

Page 74

might do their own work. He pointed out to Stansbury a good wagon which he 
had bought from discouraged emigrants for seventy-five cents. He kept a 
considerable stock-in-trade of this sort, which he had acquired through 
the misfortunes and discouragements of travelers.

   In his return itinerary Stansbury records that he found on Scotts Bluff 
a small rivulet, a row of old deserted houses, a spring at the foot of 
Sandstone Bluffs, where the road crosses the ridge, cedars on the bluffs 
and good grass on the plains.

   Bryant describes this remarkable formation as follows:

   The bluff is a large and isolated pile of sand-cliffs and soft 
sandstone. It exhibits all the architectural shapes of arch, pillar, dome, 
spire, minaret, temple, gothic castle and modern fortification. These, of 
course, are upon a scale far surpassing the constructing efforts of human 
strength and energy. The tower of Babel, if its builders had been 
permitted to proceed in their ambitious undertaking, would be but a feeble 
imitation of these stupendous structures of nature. While surveying this 
scenery, which is continuous for twenty or thirty miles, the traveler 
involuntarily imagines himself in the midst of the desolate and deserted 
ruins of vast cities, to which Nineveh, Thebes and Babylon were pigmies in 
grandeur and magnificence. The trail leaves the river as we approach 
"Scott's Bluff" and runs over a smooth valley in the rear of the bluff 
seven or eight miles. From this level plain we ascended some distance, and 
found a faint spring of water near the summit of the ridge, as cold as 
melted ice.

   From the extreme height of this ridge the travelers were able to see 
the peaks of the Rocky mountains; and Laramie's Peak, one hundred and 
fifty miles distant, was distinctly visible. This author gives perhaps as 
nearly authentic a story of the tragedy which gave the name to the bluff 
as can now be told:

   A party of some five or six trappers, in the employment of the American 
Fur Company, were returning to the "settlements," under the command of a 
man -- a noted mountaineer -- named Scott. They attempted to perform the 
Journey in boats, down the Platte. The current of the river became so 
shallow that they could not navigate it. Scott was seized with a disease 
which rendered him helpless. The men with him left him in the boat, and 
when they returned to their employers, reported that Scott had died on the 
journey, and that they had buried him on the banks of the Platte. The next 
year a party of hunters, traversing this region, discovered a human 
skeleton wrapped in blankets, which from the clothing and papers found 
upon it, was immediately recognized as being the remains of Scott. He had 
been deserted by his men, but afterwards recovering his strength 
sufficiently to leave the boat, he had wandered into the bluffs where he 
died, where his bones were found, and which now bears his name.

   As Captain Bonneville learned the story in 1832, Scott traveled sixty 
miles eastward before he succumbed at the bluffs.

   While those early travelers were keen and intelligent observers of the 
remarkable mountain region of Nebraska, it was left to the recent work of 
scientific men to furnish accurate information and specific data 
concerning it. Court House Rock is now about five miles from the river, 
its height above the sea level is 4,100 feet; and above the level of the 
river, 440 feet. Its upper part of about 160 feet is of sandstone and the 
rest of pink Bad Lands clay. Chimney Rock is somewhat less than two miles 
from the river; its height above sea level is 4,242 feet, and above the 
river, 340 feet. The chimney proper is about 50 feet in diameter at the 
base, 142 feet high, and is of sandy formation. A part of the upper forty 
feet of the chimney has been chipped off. The rest of the rock is of pink 
clay or marl, interbedded with volcanic ash. One of these beds is five 
feet in thickness. The varying colors of white and red attributed to these 
elevations by the early travelers were owing to the light to which they 
were exposed when they saw them. In the clear sunlight the color was 
white. Geologists suppose that the volcanic ash was blown across the 
plains from the far distant mountain regions of Arizona. Wind and rain 
tint the whole surface of these remarkable rocks with this whitish ash.

   Scotts Bluff is about three-quarters of a mile from the river; 4,662 
feet in height above sea level, and nearly 800 feet above the river. The 
upper 282 feet is of sandy and concretionary formation, below which are 
pink Bad Lands

Page 75

clays or marls, with two beds of white volcanic ash. This bluff is in 
Scotts Bluff county, and Court House Rock and Chimney Rock are in Cheyenne 
county. The highest peak in the range is Wild Cat mountain -- 5,084 
feet -- in Banner county. The highest elevation of these mountains, in 
Nebraska, is in the extreme northwest of Kimball county where they reach 
the height of 5,300 feet.

   It is said that the Oregon trail in Nebraska is entirely obliterated. 
In September, 1873, the writer of this history crossed it near Steele 
City, and it was then a gorgeous band of sunflowers, stretching on a 
direct line northwestwardly as far as the vision could reach -- a most 
impressive scene. But. the route may always be described generally by the 
principal rivers as follows: The Kansas, the Little Blue, the Platte, the 
Sweetwater, the Big Sandy, the Green, the Bear, the Snake, the Boise, the 
Grande Ronde, the Umatilla, the Columbia. The northern trail from old 
Council Bluff kept to the north of the Platte, crossing just beyond the 
mouth of the Laramie river. This northern route probably came to be 
considerably used about 1840. When Fremont crossed the Platte on his 
return, twenty-one miles below the junction of the north and south forks, 
he found on the north side "an excellent, plainly beaten road." Fremont 
crossed the Loup river below its forks, while the earlier Oregon trail 
crossed the forks above the junction. Subsequently there were branches 
from Florence, Omaha, Bellevue, Plattsmouth, Nebraska City, and 
Brownville, and from St. Joseph and Fort Leavenworth below the Nebraska 
line. They flourished most from the time of the gold discoveries in the 
Pike's Peak region until the Pacific roads were built.

   This wonderful highway was in the broadest sense a national road, 
although not surveyed or built under the auspices of the government. It 
was the route of a national movement -- the migration of a people seeking 
to avail itself of opportunities which have come but rarely in the history 
of the world, and which will never come again. It was a route, every mile 
of which has been the scene of hardship and suffering, yet of high purpose 
and stern. determination. Only on the steppes of Siberia can so long a 
highway be found over which traffic has moved by a continuous journey from 
one end to the other. Even in Siberia there are occasional settlements 
along the route, but on the Oregon trail in 1843 the traveler saw no 
evidence of civilized habitation except four trading posts, between 
Independence and Fort Vancouver.

   As a highway of travel the Oregon trail is the most remarkable known to 
history. Considering the fact that it originated with the spontaneous use 
of travelers; that no transit ever located a foot of it; that no level 
established its grades; that no engineer sought out the fords or built any 
bridges or surveyed the mountain passes; that there was no grading to 
speak of nor any attempt at metalling the road-bed; the general good 
quality of this two thousand miles of highway will seem most 
extraordinary. Father De Smet, who was born in Belgium, the home of good 
roads, pronounced the Oregon trail one of the finest highways in the 
world. At the proper season of the year this was undoubtedly true. Before 
the prairies became too dry, the, natural turf formed the best roadway for 
horses to travel on that has probably ever been known. It was amply hard 
to sustain traffic, yet soft enough to be easier to the feet than even the 
most perfect asphalt pavement. Over such roads, winding ribbon-like 
through the verdant prairies, amid the profusion of spring flowers, with 
grass so plentiful that the animals reveled in its abundance, and game 
everywhere greeted the hunter's rifle, and finally, with pure water in the 
streams, the traveler sped his way with a feeling of joy and exhilaration. 
But not so when the prairies became dry and parched, the road filled with 
stifling dust, the stream beds mere dry ravines, or carrying only alkaline 
water which could not be used, the game all gone to more hospitable 
sections, and the summer sun pouring down its heat with torrid intensity. 
It was then that the trail became a highway of desolation, strewn with 
abandoned property, the skeletons of horses, mules, and oxen, and, alas! 
too often, with freshly made mounds and head boards that told the pitiful 
tale of sufferings too great to be endured. If the trail was the scene of 
romance, adventure, pleasure, and excitement, so it was marked in every 
mile of its course by human misery, tragedy, and death.

   The immense travel which in later years passed over the trail carved it 
into a deep furrow, often with several parallel tracks making a total 
width of a hundred feet or more. It was an astonishing spectacle even to 
white men when seen for the first time.

Page 76

   It may be easily imagined how great an impression the sight of this 
road must have made upon the minds of the Indians. Father De Smet has 
recorded some interesting observations upon this point.

   In 1851 he traveled in company with a large number of Indians from the 
Missouri and Yellowstone rivers to Fort Laramie, where a great council was 
held in that year to form treaties with the several tribes. Most of these 
Indians had not been in that section before, and were quite unprepared for 
what they saw. "Our Indian companions," says Father De Smet, "who had 
never see but the narrow hunting paths by which they transport themselves 
and their lodges, were filled with admiration on seeing this noble 
highway, which is as smooth as a barn floor swept by the winds, and not a 
blade of grass can shoot up on it on account of the continual passing. 
They conceived a high idea of the countless White Nation, as they express 
it. They fancied that all had gone over that road, and that an immense 
void must exist in the land of the rising sun. Their contenances testified 
evident incredulity when I told them that their exit was in nowise 
perceived in the land of the whites. They styled the route the Great 
Medicine Road of the Whites."(35)

   Over much of its length the trail is now abandoned, but in many places 
it is not yet effaced from the soil, and may not be for centuries. There 
are few more impressive sights than portions of this old highway to-day. 
It still lies there upon the prairie, deserted by the traveler, an 
everlasting memorial of the human tide which once filled it to 
overflowing. Nature herself has helped to perpetuate this memorial, for 
the prairie winds, year by year, carve the furrow more deeply, and the 
wild sunflower blossoms along its course, as if in silent memory of those 
who sank beneath its burdens . . .

   Railroads practically follow the old line from Independence to Casper, 
Wyoming, some fifty miles east of Independence Rock; and from Bear river 
on the Utah-Wyoming line to the mouth of the Columbia. The time is not 
distant when the intermediate space will be occupied, and possibly a 
continuous and unbroken movement of trains over the entire line may some 
day follow. In a future still more remote there may be realized a project 
which is even now being agitated, of building a magnificent national road 
along this line as a memorial highway which shall serve the future and 
commemorate the past.(36)

   There were other journeys of minor importance through Nebraska to the 
far Northwest, previous to Fremont's return from his first expedition, 
when the trans-Missouri region was no longer an unknown country. About 
1832 a strong movement began for sending missionaries to the Indian tribes 
beyond the Rocky mountains. In 1834 the Methodists sent Jason and Daniel 
Lee; and in 1835 the Presbyterians sent Marcus Whitman and Rev. Samuel 
Parker, who started from Bellevue on the 22d of June with a caravan of the 
American Fur Company led by Lucien Fontenelle. The party first traveled to 
the Elkhorn river, which they followed ten miles, then followed Shell 
creek "a good distance." They crossed the Loup at the Pawnee villages near 
the junction of the forks, then went southwest to the Platte river, which 
they followed to the forks, and then proceeded along the north fork.

   In his journal(37) Parker relates that his party crossed the Elkhorn on 
the 25th of June, 1835. "For conveyance over this river we constructed a 
boat of a wagon body so covered with undressed skins as to make it nearly 
water-tight. The method was very good." This appears to have been a 
favorite method of fording streams; for the first wagon train that crossed 
the Plains of which we have an account that of Captain Bonneville, in 
1832 --forded the Platte in the same way. The wagons, "dislodged from the 
wheels, were covered with buffalo hides and besmeared with a compound of 
tallow and ashes, thus forming rude boats."(38) Mr. Parker tells us that

   The manner of our encamping is to form a large hollow square, 
encompassing an area of about an acre having the river on one side; three 
wagons forming a part of another side, coming down to the river; and three 
more in the same manner on the opposite side; and the packages so arranged 
in parcels, about three rods apart, as to fill up the rear and the sides 
not occupied by the wagons. The horses and mules, near the middle of the 
day, are turned out under guard to feed for two hours, and the same again 
towards night, until after sunset, when they are taken up and brought 
within the hollow square, and fastened with 

(35. Western Missions and Missionaries, pp. 97-98.)

(36. History American Fur Trade, vol. i, pp. 460-463.)

(37. Journal of an Exploring Tour, P. 49.)

(38. Adventures of Captain Bonneville, p. 53.)

Page 75

[image caption: Photographs by John Wright, staff artist. SCENES AT ASH 
HOLLOW. The original route of the Oregon Trail from the south fork to the 
north fork of the Platte river, by way of Ash Hollow, descends northward 
from the plain, 3,763 feet above sea level, four miles to the river 
bottom, at an elevation of 3,314 feet. From the head of the Hollow, the 
trail, still visible, wound to the left about a mile along the sharp-
backed ridges, then dropped by a very steep descent eastward into the 
Hollow, which here widens into a level valley from a quarter to half a 
mile wide. The spring, a luxury to the emigrants, still bubbles up 
strongly a quarter of a mile from the mouth of the Hollow, and at the base 
of a cliff about 100 feet high, as shown in the middle picture, The cedar 
and ash trees at one time abundant here all have been cut away. Marks of 
Fort Grattan, occupied as a post in 1855, are visible near the river north 
of the east side of the mouth of the Hollow. On the west side of the mouth 
of the Hollow are the modest gravestones of Rachel Patterson, a girl of 
nineteen, who died in 1849, and of two infant children.
   The figure on the hill is that of Mr. Alberts, editor of the MORTON 
HISTORY.]

Page 78

ropes twelve feet long to pickets driven firmly into the ground. The men 
are divided into companies, stationed at the several parcels of goods and 
wagons, where they wrap themselves in their blankets and rest for the 
night; the whole, however, are formed into six divisions to keep guard, 
relieving each other every two hours. This is to prevent hostile Indians 
from falling upon us by surprise, or coming into the tent by stealth and 
taking away either horses or packages of goods.

   The Pawnees were evidently the same troublesome, thieving creatures at 
the time of their first relations with white men as they proved to be down 
through territorial times. On the 2d of July Parker records(39) that, 
"these Indians were going out upon their summer hunt by the same route we 
were pursuing, and were not willing we should go on before them lest we 
should frighten away the buffalo." And again, July 6th: "We were prevented 
from making the progress we might have done if the Indians would have 
permitted us to go on and leave them. The men of the caravan began to 
complain of the delay, and had reason to do so, having nothing to eat but 
boiled corn and no way to obtain anything more before finding buffalos." 
And then, July 9th, we have a hint of that irrepressible spirit which was 
soon to force the Indians out and away from further opportunity for 
interference; for "Captain Fontenelle, by a large present, purchased of 
the Indians the privilege of going on tomorrow without them." But "our men 
could hardly have been kept in subordination if they had not consented." 
On the 14th of July "the announcement of buffalo spread cheerfulness and 
animation through the whole caravan and to men whose very life depended on 
the circumstances it was no indifferent event. From the immense herd of 
these wild animals we were to derive our subsistence."

   Francis Parkman, the noted historian, traveled over the Oregon trail, 
starting from Leavenworth in May, 1846. Like every other observant 
traveler, he makes note of the Pawnee trails leading from their villages 
on the Loup and the Platte to the southwestward hunting grounds. The 
universal notice of these trails, which appear to have extended as far as 
the Smoky Hill river, proves that they must have been well-defined. 
Parkman expresses the difference in the impression made upon travelers by 
the Plains and by the mountain country, by noting that the trip from Fort 
Leavenworth to Grand island was regarded as the more tedious; while that 
from Fort Laramie west was the more arduous. By this time the principal 
points in the Oregon trail had come to be permanently fixed, and Parkman 
says, "We reached the south fork of the Platte at the usual fording 
place." The trail had also become a busy highway by 1846, for Parkman 
tells us that the spring of that year was a busy season in the city of St. 
Louis. "Not only were emigrants from every part of the country preparing 
for the journey to Oregon and Calfornia but an unusual number of traders 
were making ready their wagons and outfits for Santa Fe. The hotels were 
crowded and the gunsmiths and saddlers were kept constantly at work 
preparing arms and equipments for the different parties of travelers. 
Steamboats were leaving the levee and passing up the Missouri, crowded 
with passengers on their way to the frontier." Parkman adds his testimony 
as to the illusory notion of the navigability of the Platte in an account 
of the misadventures of a fleet of eleven boats laden with furs which were 
attempting to make use of that treacherous stream as a highway: "Fifty 
times a day the boats had been aground; indeed, those who navigate the 
Platte invariably spend half their time on sand-bars. Two or three boats, 
the property of private traders, afterward separating from the rest, got 
hopelessly involved in the shallows, not very far from the Pawnee 
villages, and were soon surrounded by a swarm of the inhabitants. They 
carried off everything that they thought valuable, including most of the 
robes; and amused themselves by tying up the men left on guard and soundly 
whipping them with sticks."(40)

   Bryant testifies to the futility of successfully attempting to navigate 
the Platte even with the shallow Mackinaw boats. Below the forks he met 
two parties with these craft laden 

(39. Journal of an Exploring Tour beyond the Rocky Mountains, 1835-37, pp.
52-53.)

(40. Oregon Trail, pp. 69-70.)

Page 79

with buffalo skins and bales of furs. The men were obliged to jump into 
the stream very frequently to push the boats over the bars, and it would 
often require three or four hours to cover a single mile.

   These incidents may be coupled in an interesting way with the serious 
attempts to navigate the Platte in the later territorial times.

   Bayard Taylor, in his Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire, 
gives the following vividly realistic description of the part which 
Nebraska was playing in the great drama of California emigration:

   The great starting point for this route was Independence, Missouri, 
where thousands were encamped during the month of April, waiting until the 
grass should be sufficiently high for their cattle, before they ventured 
on the broad ocean of the Plains. From the first of May to the first of 
June, company after company took its departure from the frontier of 
civilization, till the emigrant trail from Ft. Leavenworth, on the 
Missouri, to Ft. Laramie at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, was one long 
line of mule trains and wagons. The rich meadows of the Nebraska or 
Platte, were settled for the time, and a single traveler could have 
journeyed for the space of a thousand miles, as certain of his lodgings 
and regular meals as if he were riding through the old agricultural 
districts of the Middle States. The wandering tribes of Indians on the 
Plains -- the Pawnees, Sioux, and Arapahoes -- were alarmed and bewildered 
by this strange apparition. They believed they were about to be swept away 
forever from their hunting grounds and grass. As the season advanced and 
the great body of emigrants got under way, they gradually withdrew from 
the vicinity of the trail, and betook themselves to grounds which the 
former did not reach. All conflicts with them were thus avoided, and the 
emigrants passed the Plains with perfect immunity from their hostile and 
thievish visitations.

   Another and more terrible scourge, however, was doomed to fall upon 
them. The cholera, ascending the Mississippi from New Orleans, reached St. 
Louis about the time of their departure from Independence, and overtook 
them before they were fairly embarked on the wilderness. The frequent 
rains of the early spring, added to the hardship and exposure of their 
travel, prepared the way for its ravages, and the first three or four 
hundred miles were marked by graves. It is estimated that about four 
thousand persons perished from this cause.

   Willam Kelly observed Fort Kearney with foreign contemptuousness, thus: 
"We reached Fort Kearney early in the evening -- if fort it can be 
called -- where the States have stationed a garrison of soldiers, in a 
string of log huts, for the protection of the emigrants; and a most 
unsoldierly looking lot they were - - unshaven, unshorn, with patched 
uniforms, and lounging gait. Both men and officers were ill off for some 
necessaries, such as flour and sugar, the privates being most particular 
in their inquiries after whiskey."(41)

   Fort Kearney. Stansbury, who reached Fort Kearney on the 19th of June, 
gives this description of the fort: "The post at present consists of a 
number of long, low buildings, constructed principally of adobe, or sun-
dried bricks, with nearly flat roofs; a large hospital tent; two or three 
workshops, enclosed by canvas walls; storehouses constructed in the same 
manner; one or two long adobe stables, with roofs of brush; and tents for 
the accommodation of horses and men." He speaks of the road over the 
prairies as being "already broad and well beaten as any turnpike in our 
country." He says of the emigrant's wagon that "it is literally his home. 
In it he carries his all, and it serves him as a tent, kitchen, parlor, 
and bedroom, and not infrequently as a boat to ferry him over an otherwise 
impassable stream. Many have no other shelter from the storm during the 
whole journey, and most of these vehicles are extremely tight, roomy, and 
comfortable." He complains of the breaking out of skin diseases on account 
of the lack of fresh meat and vegetables; and as to game, "Ashambault, our 
guide, told me that the last time he passed this spot (the valley of the 
Platte near the eastern end of Grand island) the whole of the immense 
Plain as far as the eye could reach, was black with the herds of buffalo. 
Now not so much as one is to be seen; they have fled before the advancing 
tide of emigration." The emigrants were obliged to go four or five miles 
from the line of travel 

(41. Across the Rocky Mountains, pp. 99, 100.)

Page 80

to find a buffalo. Stansbury says that the Pawnee Indians were very 
troublesome between the Blue and Fort Kearney, so that a force had been 
sent from the fort to drive them off. A great many of the travelers became 
discouraged before they had entirely crossed the Missouri plains, and 
Stansbury relates that "wagons could be bought from them for from ten to 
fifteen dollars apiece and provisions for almost nothing at all." The 
party forded the south fork of the Platte one hundred and eighty miles 
west of Fort Kearney in this way:

   One of these wagons, as an experimental pioneer, was partially unloaded 
by removing all

[image caption: ALEXANDER MAJORS Frontiersman, pioneer freighter, under 
whose direction the pony express was inaugurated]

articles liable to injury from water, and then driven into the stream; but 
it stuck fast, and the ordinary team of six mules being found insufficient 
to haul it through the water, four more were quickly attached and the 
crossing was made with perfect safety and without wetting anything. In the 
same manner were all the remaining wagons crossed, one by one, by doubling 
the teams and, employing the force of nearly the whole party wading along 
side to incite and guide the mules. The water was perfectly opaque with 
yellow mud and it required all our care to avoid the quicksands with which 
the bottom is covered . . . Both man and beast suffered more from this 
day's exertion than from any day's march we had yet made.

   Published accounts of this California travel seem to be confined to the 
lower route -- from Independence, St. Joseph, and Fort Leavenworth. In the 
year 1849 one William D. Brown had a charter for operating the Lone Tree 
Ferry across the river from Council Bluff to accommodate this class of 
emigration. The upper routes, however, did not come into general use until 
the Pike's Peak discoveries of gold about ten years later.

   THE OVERLAND STAGE. The "Overland Mail" and the "Overland Stage" to 
California are justly famous as factors in the vast enterprise of opening 
up the western plains and of traversing them for communication with the 
Pacific coast. The simultaneous development of the California gold fields 
and the successful founding of the great Mormon settlement at Salt Lake 
City led to the establishment by the federal government of the "Overland 
Mail," and the first contract for carrying this mail was let in 1850 to 
Samuel H. Woodston of Independence, Missouri. The service was monthly and 
the distance between the terminal points, Independence and Salt Lake City, 
was twelve hundred miles. Soon after this time this mail route was 
continued to Sacramento, California. The service was by stagecoach, and 
the route was substantially the same as the Oregon trail as far as the 
Rocky mountains, and thus passed through Nebraska. Fort Kearney, Fort 
Laramie, and Fort Bridger were the three military posts on the route. When 
serious trouble with the Mormons was threatened in 1857, General Albert 
Sidney Johnston was sent with five thousand soldiers into the Salt Lake 
valley, and the mail service was soon after increased to weekly trips. In 
1859 this mail contract was transferred to Russell, Majors & Waddell, who 
afterward became the most extensive freighters in Nebraska from the 
Missouri river. The firm's original headquarters were at Leavenworth, but 
when it took the contract for carrying sup-

Page 81

plies to Johnston's army in 1858 Nebraska City was chosen as a second 
Missouri river initial station, and the business was conducted by 
Alexander Majors, who thus became a very prominent citizen of the 
territory. He states that over sixteen million pounds of supplies were 
carried from Nebraska City and Leavenworth to Utah in the year 1858, 
requiring over three thousand five hundred wagons and teams to transport 
them. This firm controlled the Leavenworth and Pike's Peak Express, and 
after taking the mail contract in question the two stage lines were 
consolidated under the name of the Central Overland California and Pike's 
Peak Express. The new contractors abandoned St. Joseph as an initial 
point, and started only from Atchison and Leavenworth. After the 
subsidence of the Mormon trouble the mail service to Salt Lake City was 
reduced -- in June, 1859. The first through mail line to the Pacific coast 
was opened by the postoffice department September 15, 1858, and it ran 
from St. Louis through Texas via Fort Yuma to San Francisco. It was 
operated by the Butterfield Overland Mail company, John Butterfield being 
the principal contractor. The main objection urged against the northern 
route was that on account of deep snow and severe weather the mail could 
not be carried regularly and the trips were often abandoned during a 
considerable part of the winter season; but southern wish and political 
power were doubtless the real father to the thought of the change. The 
mail left St. Louis and San Francisco simultaneously on the 15th of 
September, 1858, to traverse for the first time a through route from the 
Missouri river to the Pacific ocean. The trips were made semi-weekly with 
Concord coaches drawn by four or six horses, and the schedule time was 
twenty-five days.

   On account of the disturbance of the Civil war the southern route was 
abandoned in the spring of 1861, and a daily mail was established over the 
northern route, starting at first from St. Joseph, but a few months 
afterward

[image caption: ONE TYPE OF THE FAMOUS CONCORD STAGE-COACH]

from Atchison, Kansas. The consolidated stage line which carried it -- the 
Central Overland California and Pike's Peak Express -- was in operation 
for about five years, or until it was superseded in part by the partial 
completion of the trancontinental railway. The first through daily coaches 
on this line left the terminal points -- St. Joseph, Missouri, and 
Placerville, California -- on the 1st of July, 1861, the trip occupying a 
litttle more than seventeen days. The stage route followed the overland 
trail on the south side of the Platte river, while the Union Pacific 
railroad, which superseded it as far as Kearney in 1866, was built on the 
north side of the river. "For two hundred miles -- from Fort Kearney to a 
point

Page 82

opposite old Julesburg -- the early stage road and railroad were in no 
place more than a few miles apart; and in a number of places a short 
distance on either side of the river and only the river itself separating 
them." As the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railway lines approached 
each other from the west and from the east, the stages adapted their 
starting point from time to time to the termini of the railroads. The 
Concord coaches used on this greatest stage line ever operated, and so-
called because they were built in Concord, New Hampshire, accommodated 
nine passengers inside and often one or two sat beside the driver, 
Sometimes an extra seat was built on the outside behind the driver, and 
not infrequently as many as fifteen passengers rode in and on a coach.

   Until 1863 the passenger fare by this stage line was $75 from Atchison 
to Denver, $150 to Salt Lake, and $225 to Placerville. The fare was 
increased soon after when the currency of the country became inflated. Ben 
Holladay, who was the transportation Morgan or Hill of those days, 
controlled this great line. In 1865 he obtained the contracts for carrying 
the mail from Nebraska City and Omaha to Kearney City. The Western Stage 
Company was another large transportation organization which operated 
stages in Iowa; and from the latter '50's until it was taken over by 
Holladay, quite after the fashion of present day combinations, it operated 
stage lines from Omaha and Nebraska City to Fort Kearney. There was a good 
deal of friction between these two lines during the times of heavy travel, 
owing to the fact that the through passengers on the Overland route from 
Atchison filled the stages so that those coming from Omaha and Nebraska 
City on the Western Stage Company's lines were often obliged to wait at 
Fort Kearney a tedious number of days.

   The famous Pony Express, which was put into operation in 1860 between 
St. Joseph and Sacramento, was the forerunner of the present great fast 
mail system of the United States.

   In 1854 Senator W. M. Gwin of California rode to Washington on 
horseback on the central route by way of Salt Lake City and South pass; 
and over part of the route B. F. Ficklin, superintendent of the firm of 
Russell, Majors & Waddell, was his companion. The idea of the famous Pony 
Express grew out of this trip. Senator Gwin introduced a bill in the 
Senate to establish a weekly mail on the pony express plan, but without 
avail, and then, through Gwin's influence, Russell organized the scheme as 
a private enterprise through the Central Overland California and Pike's 
Peak Express company. No financial aid was extended to the company by the 
government. Ordinary letters were carried by the slower service and were 
barred by the high toll from this fast express. "The charges were 
originally five dollars for each letter of one-half ounce or less; but 
afterwards this was reduced to two dollars and a half . . . this being in 
addition to the regular United States postage.

   The originators of this great enterprise evidently knew that its 
regular revenue would amount to but a small part of the operating 
expenses, and counted on receiving a subsidy from the federal government. 
But the subsidy of a million dollars was reserved for the slower daily 
mail which superseded the pony express. This brilliant pioneer object 
lesson in fast transcontinental service cost the demonstrators some two 
hundred thousand dollars in loss. By an act of Congress of March 2, 1861, 
the contract of the post-office department with the Overland company of 
the old southern route for a daily mail over the central route included a 
semi-weekly pony express. The original company continued to operate the 
Pony Express under this contract by arrangement with the Overland company 
until it failed in August, 1861. The Express was continued by other 
parties until October 24th of that year when the through telegraph line 
had been completed.

   In 1860, according to the report of the postmaster general, there was a 
tri-monthly mail by the ocean to California, and a semi-monthly mail from 
St. Joseph to Placerville, but during the year this was increased to a 
weekly between St. Joseph and Fort Kearney, "for the purpose of supplying 
the large and

Page 83

increasing populations in the regions of the Pike's Peak and Washoe 
mines." There were two other mail routes to San Francisco -- a weekly from 
New Orleans, via San Antonio and El Paso, and a semi-weekly from St. Louis 
to Memphis.

   By the ninth section of an act of Congress approved March 2, 1861, 
authority is given to the postmaster general to discontinue the mail 
service on the southern overland route (known as the "Butterfield route") 
between St. Louis and Memphis and San Francisco, and to provide for the 
conveyance, by the same parties, of a six-times-a-week mail by the 
"central route," that is, from some point on the Missouri river, 
connecting with the east, to Placerville, California. In pursuance of this 
act, and the acceptance of its terms by the mail company, an order was 
made on the 12th of March 1861, to modify the present contract so as to 
discontinue the service on the southern route and to provide for the 
transportation of the entire letter mail, six times a week on the central 
route, to be carried through in twenty days eight months in the year, and 
in twenty-three days four months in the year, from St. Joseph, Missouri 
(or Atchison, Kansas), to Placerville, and also to convey the entire mail 
three times a week to Denver City and Salt Lake, a pony express to be run 
twice a week until the completion of the overland telegraph, through in 
ten days, eight months, and twelve days, four months in the year, 
conveying for the government free of charge five pounds of mail matter. . .
The transfer of stock from the southern to the central route was commenced 
about the 1st of April, and was completed so that the first mail was 
started from St. Joseph on the day prescribed by the order, July 1, 1861
. . . The overland telegraph having been completed, the running of the 
pony express was discontinued October 26, 1861 . . . At the commencement 
of threatening disturbances in Missouri, in order to secure this great 
daily route from interruption, I ordered the increase of the weekly and 
tri-weekly service, then existing between Omaha and Fort Kearney, to daily 
. . . By that means an alternative and certain daily route between the 
east and California was obtained through Iowa, by which the overland mails 
have been transported when they became unsafe on the railroad route in 
Missouri. In sending them from Davenport, through the state of Iowa, 
joining the main route at Fort Kearney, in Kansas [Nebraska] the only 
inconvenience experienced was a slight delay, no mails being lost so far 
as known.(42)

   THE PONY EXPRESS. In the spring of 1860 an advertisement containing the 
schedule of the new enterprise was published in New York and St. Louis 
newspapers. It announced that the Pony Express would run regularly each 
week from April 3, 1860, that it would carry letter mail only, that it 
would pass through Forts Kearney, Laramie, and Bridger, Great Salt Lake 
City, Camp Floyd, Carson City, the Washoe silver mines, Placerville, and 
Sacramento, and that the letter mail would be delivered in San Francisco 
within ten days of the departure of the express. Telegraph dispatches were 
delivered in San Francisco in eight days after leaving St. Joseph.(43) W. 
H. Russell,(44) president of the Central Overland California and Pike's 
Peak Express company, was the mainspring of this remarkable enterprise. 
About five hundred of the hardiest and fleetest horses were used; there 
were a hundred and ninety stations distributed along the route from nine 
miles to fifteen miles apart, and each of the eighty riders covered three 
stations, or an aggregate of about thirty-three miles, using a fresh horse 
for each stage. In the spring of 1861 the express left St. Joseph twice a 
week -- on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The maximum weight of the letters 
carried was twenty pounds. The schedule at first was ten days, but it was 
afterwards accelerated to eight days. The time occupied in making the 
first trip between St. Joseph and Sacramento was nine days and twenty-
three hours, not much more than half the time of the fastest overland 
coach trip between St. Louis and San Francisco by the southern route. At 
Sacramento the mail was taken aboard steamers, which made as fast time as 
possible down the Sacramento river for the remaining one hundred twenty-
five miles to San Francisco. Surefooted and tough Mexican horses were 
commonly used on the rough, mountainous stages. 

(42. Messages and Documents, 1861-1862, pt. iii, pp. 560-561.)

(43. They were carried by Pony Express to Placerville or Sacramento and 
telegraphed from there.)

(44. General Bela M. Hughes, late of Denver, Colorado, succeeded William 
H. Russell as president of the Overland, in March, 1861.)

Page 84

Heat and alkali dust in summer, snow and torrential streams in winter, and 
hostile Indians the year round, made these trips exceedingly difficult and 
hazardous. Armed men mounted on bronchos were stationed at regular 
intervals along a large part of the trail to protect the riders from the 
Indians. These riders of necessity were distinguished for remarkable 
endurance and courage, and many of them afterward became famous as hunters 
and Indian fighters on the great Plains. The route of William F. Cody, who 
afterward became

[image caption: MOSES H. SYDENHAM Pioneer of Western Nebraska]

a permanent citizen of Nebraska, lay between Red Buttes, Wyoming, and 
Three Crossings on the Sweetwater, a distance of about seventy-six miles, 
and one of the most difficult and dangerous stages of the whole line. Cody 
himself relates that in an emergency he continued his trip on from Three 
Crossings to Rocky Ridge -- eighty-five miles - and then back to his 
starting point, Red Buttes, covering the whole distance of three hundred 
and twenty-two miles without rest, making not less than fifteen miles an 
hour. The Pony Express was operated for eighteen months, or until it was 
superseded by the telegraph, which was completed in 1861. Considering its 
vicissitudes and hazards and its remarkable speed, so nearly approximating 
that of the steam railway train, the Pony Express was the most interesting 
and picturesque transportation enterprise of which we have any record. The 
Express followed the lines of the old Oregon trail in Nebraska, passing 
through Big Sandy and Thirty-two Mile creek, Cottonwood Springs, and 
O'Fallons Bluff to the lower California crossing then opposite the present 
Big Spring. It then followed the Julesburg route, reaching the north fork 
near Court House Rock via Lodge Pole creek and Thirty-mile ridge. On 
occasion remarkably quick time was made by the Express. For example, a 
copy of President Lincoln's first inaugural address went from St. Joseph 
to Sacramento, approximately two thousand miles, in seven days and 
seventeen hours, and the distance between St. Joseph and Denver, six 
hundred and sixty-five miles, was covered on this trip in sixty-nine hours.

   The Missouri and Western Telegraph company completed the first 
telegraph line from Brownville by way of Omaha to Fort Kearney in 
November, 1860, and the storeroom of Moses H. Sydenham of Kearney was used 
for the first office. This line was continued on to Julesburg by the same 
company, while Mr. Edward Creighton built the line west from that point to 
Salt Lake City, where it met the one coming east from San Francisco.

   The first mail from the east to the Pike's Peak gold mines was 
established between Fort Kearney and Denver in August, 1860. Fort Kearney 
was a very important point on the great Overland route, since there was 
the junction of travel from Kansas City, Atchison, and St. Joseph on the 
southeast, and from Omaha, Council Bluffs, and Nebraska City on the east.

   Fort Kearney, in 1863, was a rather lonesome but a prominent point. It 
was a place of a dozen or more buildings including the barracks, and was 
established by the government in 1849. Here it was that the stages, ox and 
mule trains west from Atchison, Omaha, and Nebraska City came to the first

Page 85

telegraph station on the great military highway. It was a grand sight 
after traveling one hundred and fifty miles without seeing a settlement of 
more than two or three houses to gaze upon the old post, uninviting as it 
was, and see the few scattered buildings, a nice growth of shade trees, 
the cavalry men mounted upon their steeds, the cannon planted in the 
hollow square, and the glorious stars and stripes proudly waving in the 
breeze above the garrison. The stage station -- just west of the military 
post --was a long, one-story log building and it was an important one; for 
here the western stage routes from Omaha and Nebraska City terminated, and 
its passengers from thence westward had to be transferred to Ben 
Holladay's old reliable Overland line.

   RIVER NAVIGATION. Though there was some steamboat traffic on the lower 
Missouri river before 1830, the American Fur Company, under the control of 
John Jacob Astor and his son, William B. Astor, with headquarters at New 
York and a branch house at St. Louis, prepared for the first regular 
navigation, extending to the upper river, in that year. The company built 
the steamer Yellowstone, so named, doubtless, because its farthest 
objective point was to be the mouth of the Yellowstone river. But on the 
first trip, in the spring of 1831, it was impracticable to go farther than 
Fort Tecumseh, opposite the present city of Pierre. The following spring 
the Yellowstone reached Fort Union, and this first trip established the 
practicability of upper river steamboat navigation. Fort Benton soon came 
to be regarded as the head of navigation and retained that advantageous 
distinction as long as river navigation lasted. Missouri river steamboat 
traffic was largely cut off when the Northern Pacific railway reached 
Bismarck in 1873, and it was virtually abandoned when other railroads 
reached the river at Pierre in 1880 and at Chamberlain in 1881. It is 
probable that the last through commercial trip was made in 1878, and that 
the Missouri made the last trip for any purpose from St. Louis to Fort 
Benton in 1885. Though carried on for forty years with great difficulty, 
owing to the notoriously shifty and snaggy character of the stream, this 
navigation was the chief medium of freight and passenger traffic between 
the East and the western Plains, and was the right arm of the forces which 
began the structure of civilized society in Nebraska and of the first 
trancontinental railway whose beginning was also in Nebraska. Whether this 
greatest but ugliest -- in temper as well as appearance -- of all our 
great rivers will ever again be utilized for navigation depends upon the 
unsettled economic question whether future mechanical inventions and 
improvements shall constitute or reëstablish it as a practicable rival or 
coadjutor of the railway. At the present time the chances do not encourage 
expensive experiments upon the river to fit it for navigation, and in 1902 
Congress abolished the useless and senecure Missouri river commission. But 
it is not improbable that this vast body of water will eventually be used 
for the irrigation of enormous areas of arid and semi-arid but otherwise 
exceedingly rich agricultural lands. Engineering authority in support of 
this view is not wanting.

   Until the introduction of steamboats the river traffic of the fur 
companies was carried on by keel-boats. They were usually from sixty to 
seventy feet in length, and, with the exception of about twelve feet at 
either end, were occupied by an enclosed apartment in the shape of a long 
box in which the cargo was placed. The boats were ordinarily propelled by 
a cordelle, a rope about three hundred yards long, one end being attached 
to a tall mast, while the other was in the hands of from one to two score 
men who traveled along the shore of the river and hauled the boat after 
them. When the wind was at all favorable a large sail was also used, and 
frequently the boat would make good progress against the current by the 
force of the wind alone. Poles and oars were used also as emergency 
required. It is not remarkable that by this clumsy and fearfully laborious 
method the ordinary voyage of the keel-boat from St. Louis to the upper 
river was not accomplished in less than four or five months. The mackinaw-
boat was somewhat smaller than the keelboat and of comparatively temporary 
construction. It was propelled by four oarsmen but was used only in down-
stream trips. The

Page 86

frame of the bull-boat, which was used on the shallow tributaries of the 
Missouri, was built of willow saplings lashed together with rawhide and 
covered with hides of bull buffaloes, which gave it its name. This craft 
was buoyant and flexible and well adapted for the sandy shallows of the 
Platte and others of the smaller rivers

   Bellevue was an important point in the later fur trading days, because, 
being the site of an Indian agency, boats passing up the river were 
subjected to a rigid inspection to see that they

[image caption: From painting by S. W. Y. Schymonsky. OLD TRADING POST, 
BELLEVUE, IN 1854]

had on board no intoxicating liquors which it was unlawful to carry into 
the "Indian country."

   The cargoes of the boats in the earlier river navigation consisted of 
merchandise for Indian trading, outfits for trappers and hunters, and 
stores for military posts; and in addition passengers of all sorts and 
conditions. Captain Joseph La Barge was the principal figure among the 
Missouri steamboat captains and pilots, and he characterized and 
distinguished his class just as Kit Carson and our own "Buffalo Bill" and 
others illustrated the great qualities and achievements of the scouts of 
the Plains. He was born in 1815 of a French-Canadian father and a Spanish-
French mother. At the age of seventeen he entered the service of the 
American Fur Company at Cabanne's post. In the spring of 1833 he conducted 
a fleet of mackinaw-boats from that post to St. Louis. He was also 
employed by Major Pilcher, Cabanne's successor, and in 1834 by Peter A. 
Sarpy. Soon after this he began his own career as pilot and captain of 
various steamboats on the Missouri -- mainly on the upper river -- which 
lasted till 1879. He died at St. Louis in 1899. La Barge named a steamboat 
built in 1854 and used on the Missouri river for the American Fur 
Company's trade, St. Mary, after Peter A. Sarpy's post situated just below 
Bellevue on the Iowa side of the river.

   On the 7th of June, 1851, Father De Smet, accompanied by Father 
Christian Hoecken, took passage on the steamer St. Ange from St. Louis to 
Fort Union, which was about three miles above the mouth of the 
Yellowstone, on the northern side. Several members of the American Fur 
Company with about eighty men were on the boat. "They," said the 
missionary, "went in quest of earthly wealth; Father Hoecken and I in 
search of heavenly treasures -- to the conquest of souls." It had been a 
season of mighty floods, and the valleys of the Mississippi and Missouri 
were, covered with water. The travelers were af-

Page 87

flicted with malarial diseases in various forms, and about five hundred 
miles above St. Louis they were attacked by cholera, from which Father 
Hoecken died, after heroically ministering to the needs of his stricken 
fellow-passengers. "A decent coffin, very thick, and tarred within, was 
prepared to receive his mortal remains; a temporary grave was dug in a 
beautiful forest, in the vicinity of the mouth of the Little Sioux, and 
the funeral was performed with all the ceremonies of the church, in the 
evening of the 19th of June, all on board assisting." On the return of the 
boat in about a month the coffin was exhumed and carried back to 
Florissant for burial.

   The annals of the times credit these noble priests with characteristic 
incessant devotion to their suffering fellow-passengers.

   In the year 1858 there were 59 steamboats on the lower river and, 306 
steamboat arrivals at the port of Leavenworth, Kansas. The freight charges 
paid at that point during the season amounted to $166,941.35. In 1859 the 
steamboat advertisements in the St. Louis papers showed that more vessels 
left that port for the Missouri river than for both the upper and the 
lower Mississippi. In 1857 there were 28 a steamboat arrivals at the new 
village of Sioux City before July 1. There were 23 regular boats on that 
part of the river, and their freight tonnage for the season was valued at 
$1,250,000. The period from 1855 to to 1860 was the golden era of 
steamboating on the Missouri

   It was the period just before the advent of the railroads. No other 
period before or approached it in, the splendor of the boats. he boats 
were side-wheelers, had full-length cabins, and were fitted up more for 
passengers than for freight. It was an era of fast boats and of racing.

   The provisions for the establishment of public roads are recited in the 
account of the proceedings of the several territorial legislatures; an 
account is also given of the building of territorial roads by 
appropriations of the federal Congress. The means of transportation and 
the amount and condition of travel in the territorial years before the 
completion of the Union Pacific railway are indicated in an interesting 
manner in the contemporary newspapers. In a report of a committee of the 
first council of the territorial legislatures, on a bill chartering the 
Platte Valley & Pacific Railway company, it is stated that nine-tenths of 
the travel to the Pacific coast passes along the Platte valley -- from St. 
Louis by water to Independence, Weston, St. Joe, Council Bluffs, and 
occasionally Sergeants Bluff, "and uniting at these points with those who 
come by land from the East, converge in the Platte valley at various 
points within two hundred miles, a little north of a due west line from 
Omaha, Bellevue, and Florence." This report recites, also, that "thirty 
years ago Colonel Leavenworth, who then commanded the post in sight

[image caption: PETER J. DE SMET, S. J.]

of this locality (Fort Atkinson), called the attention of our government 
to the importance, practicability, and expediency of constructing a 
railroad by way of the Platte valley to the Pacific."

   Acting Governor Cuming in his message to the legislature, December 9, 
1857, states that "The United States wagon road from the Platte river via 
the Omaha reserve to the Running Water, under the direction of Colonel 
Geo. Sites, has been constructed for a distance of one hundred and three 
miles, including thirty-nine bridges"; and he gives the names of the 
streams crossed by these bridges and the length of each bridge. Mr. J. M. 
Woolworth, in his

Page 88

little book; Nebraska in 1857, notes that, "A year ago Congress 
established a military road from this place to New Fort Kearney and 
appropriated $50,000 for its construction. That work is nearly complete, 
and runs up the valley of the Platte through all the principal settlements 
west of this." The territorial legislature(45) memorialized Congress to 
grant to John A. Latta, of Plattsmouth, 20,000 acres of land in the valley 
of the Platte river, on condition that before October 1, 1861, he "shall 
place on said river a good and substantial steamboat and run the same 
between the mouth of said Platte river" and Fort Kearney, and do all 
necessary dredging, "knowing that there is a sufficient volume of water in 
said river which is a thousand miles in length." This visionary memorial 
sets out that the proposed method of navigation would be advantageous for 
government transportation among other things. In a joint resolution and 
memorial to Congress, the Fifth legislature, in urging the bridging of the 
Platte river, states that "a military or a public road beginning at L'eau-
qui-court and extending southward across the territory, has been located 
and opened under the direction of the national government, and has become 
a great thoroughfare, whereon military supplies may be expeditiously 
transported northward. It also affords an avenue of trade of great 
advantage and is now one of the prominent mail routes to the inhabitants 
of this territory and others, in said territory."(46) The governor's 
message to the seventh legislature(47) urges that "without a bridge over 
the Loup Fork the government road up the Platte valley is but a work half 
done." The governor's message to the twelfth-and last -- territorial 
legislature(48) again urges the building of a bridge across the Platte 
river; and the same document(49) informs us that "now four regular trains 
run daily between Omaha and North Platte, 293 1/2 miles, and that the 
track is complete for 305 miles, 240 miles of roadbed having been 
constructed and 262 miles of track laid during the past season; also that 
there is a Howe truss bridge, 1,505 feet, across the Loup Fork and a pile 
bridge, 2,640 feet, across the North Fork."

   The Herald of July 13, 1866, gives a count of the excursion of the 
members legislature to the end of the Union Pacific road beyond Columbus. 
The excursionists took dinner at that place, and at the after-dinner 
ceremonies Andrew J. Poppleton presided and Dr. Thomas C. Durant, General 
Hazen, Geo. Francis Train, Governor David Butler, Thomas W. Tipton, John 
M. Thayer, and the ubiquitous Colonel Presson, then chaplain of the 
territorial house of representatives, made speeches. It is suggestive of 
the relations of the Union Pacific corporation to politics for many years 
afterwards that the speaking list at this banquet comprised most of the 
well-known republican, and some of the democratic politicians of the 
territory. The Herald of June 22, 1866, notes that George Francis Train 
had just made the quickest trip on record from Omaha to New York, via St. 
Joe, in eighty-nine hours. The same trip is now made in forty-two hours. 
The Nebraska of today, however, is not proportionately faster than his 
pioneer predecessor in other phases of his daily life. In May, 1867, 
passengers went from Chicago to Denver in five days by rail over the 
Chicago and Northwestern and the Union Pacific roads to North Platte and 
thence by Wells, Fargo & Co.'s mail and express line.

   A striking illustration of economic conditions on our western frontier 
is afforded by a statement in the Nebraska City News(50) that at Fort 
Kearney the price of corn is $3.50 and $4 a bushel, and from $3 to $4 a 
bushel a hundred miles west of Nebraska City. Illustration of the feeling 
of desert-like isolation in the territory as late as 1859 is found in 
Omaha correspondence of the Advertiser(51) which notices the arrival of 
the Florida, the first steamer of, the season, "amid the shouts and cheers 
of the multitude, and the booming of cannon under the charge of Captain 
Ladd's artillery squad. It is the earliest landing made in this vicinity

(45. Laws of Nebraska, 6th ter. sess., p. 219.)

(46. Laws of Nebraska, 5th ter. sess., p. 412.)

(47. House Journal, p. 21.)

(48. Council Journal, p. 14.)

(49. Ibid., p. 15.)

(50. November, 13, 1858.)

(51 March 17.)

Page 89

for many years." The Advertiser of March 3, 1859, says that the completion 
of the Hannibal & St. Joseph railroad was celebrated at the place last 
named on the 23d inst. on a grand scale. "The completion of this road will 
take a surprising amount of emigration off the river which will be poured 
out opposite southern Nebraska and northern Kansas and speedily work its 
way into these portions of the two territories. The Nebraska City News(52) 
rejoices that a depot of federal military supplies has been established at 
that place; and May 29th, following, the News wagers that three times more 
freight and passengers have been landed at the Nebraska City wharf this 
season than at any other town. The News of May 21, 1859, says Alexander 
Majors estimates that from four hundred to six hundred wagons would be 
sent out from Nebraska City that season, and about as many from 
Leavenworth.

   The Advertiser(53) says that, "The little boat built for the purpose of 
navigating the Platte river passed here going up on Sunday morning. It was 
a little one-horse affair, and will not, in our opinion, amount to much. 
If the Platte river is to be rendered navigable, and we believe it can, it 
requires a boat sufficiently large to slash around and stir up the sand, 
that a channel may be formed by washing." The Omaha Nebraskian(54) notes 
that forty boats will navigate the Missouri river the coming season -- two 
will run daily between Liberty and St. Joseph, and three daily between St. 
Joseph and Omaha, all in conjunction with the Hannibal and St. Joe 
railroad. On the 11th of August following the same paper notes that the 
Kearney stage made a quick trip to Omaha in thirty-three hours, carrying 
six passengers. On the 25th of the same month the Nebraskian announces 
that Colonel Miles had chosen Omaha City as the place of debarkation and 
reshipping his supplies to Fort Kearney.

   At the height of travel to the newly discovered gold mines in the 
vicinity of Denver there was sharp rivalry between Nebraska City and Omaha 
and other minor starting places, such as Brownville and Plattsmouth. As 
early as 1954 the Omaha Arrow,(55) with a wish no doubt aiding the 
thought, insists that Omaha has "the great advantages of being on a 
shorter line by many miles than any other crossing below this from Chicago 
to the north bend of the Platte, and the south, or Bridger's Pass, and the 
crossing of the Missouri river is as good, to say the least of it, at this 
point as at

[image caption: STEPHEN F. NUCKOLLS]

any other in a hundred miles above the mouth of the Platte." The Nebraska 
City News(56) takes a traveler's guide to task for stating that the route 
from Plattsmouth is direct, when Fort Kearney is in fact forty miles south 
of a line west from that starting point and half a mile south of Nebraska 
City. It is observed in the item that no government train had ever gone 
out from Plattsmouth, all traffic of this kind starting from Nebraska City 
because it was the military depot.

   The News of April 28, 1860, tells of a new route to the mines, by way 
of Olathe, on Salt 

(52. February 27, 1858.)

(53. May 12, 1859.)

(54. February 18, 1860)

(55. August 4.)

(56. April 21, 1860.)

Page 90

creek, which shortens the distance by fifty to seventy-five miles. June 
30th the News says that Cadman's, Goodwin's,(57) and Davison's,(58) on 
Salt creek, and Vifquain's on the Blue are good farms for entertainment on 
the new straight road to Kearney. The place on the Blue referred to was 
for many years subsequently the farmstead of General Victor Vifquain, and 
Cadman's was John Cadman's homestead. The News of July 28th, illustrating 
the extensive freighting business at Nebraska City, says that Hawke, 
Nuckolls & Co. sent in a train of twenty wagons from the mines for 
supplies. On the 24th of November the same paper gives a statement of 
Alexander Majors' freighting business to Utah, the western forts, and 
Pike's Peak, from April 25 to October 13, 1860:
Pounds transported - 2,782,258
Oxen used - 5,687
Wagons used - 515
Mules used - 72
Men employed - 602

   At that time Hawke & Nuckolls were, next to Majors, the heaviest 
freighters. The News of December 22, 1860, gives the following itinerary 
of the freight route from Nebraska City: To Little Nemaha 9 miles, good 
bridge across the Nemaha; Nemaha to Brownell creek, 10 miles, good ford; 
to north branch of Nemaha, 6 miles, good crossing, plenty of good water; 
to Bucks Bend, 5 miles, a rock ford on the Nemaha; to Salt creek, 20 
miles -- bridge begun -- large steam saw and grist mill; to junction of 
the old road, 3 miles; to the Blue, 25 miles, bridge absolutely necessary, 
impossible for heavy teams to cross; Blue to Dry Run, 20 miles, never 
failing spring of water; Dry Run to a spring, 20 miles; to the junction of 
Leavenworth road, 60 miles; total, 178 miles.

   The same paper contains a map of the route from Nebraska City to Fort 
Kearney, giving distances from point to point, making a total of 169 1/2 
miles, as follows: From Nebraska City to north fork of Little Nemaha, 6 
1/2 miles; up Little Nemaha to Brownell creek, 7 miles; to Little Nemaha, 
4 miles; to the head of Little Nemaha, 21 miles; to Salt creek, 11 miles; 
to east fork Big Blue, 17 miles; to a grove of timber, 17 miles; to head 
of Big Blue river, 50 miles; to Platte river, 17 miles, to Fort Kearney, 
19 miles.

   The Nebraska City News gives the following account of a contract just 
made between the authorities of the United States army and Russell, Majors 
& Waddell:

   The contract amounts to $1,700,000. Five thousand tons of government 
supplies and stores are now preparing for shipment to this place to be 
conveyed hence in ox wagons, up the valley of the Platte and across the 
mountains to Utah. To move this immense mass will require two thousand 
heavy wagons, twenty hundred ox drivers and train masters, and from 
eighteen to twenty thousand oxen, and in one continuous column will 
present a length of forty miles. Mr. Majors, one of the government 
contractors for transporting this freight, has taken up his residence in 
this city, and of course will prove an inestimable addition to its 
society, both socially, morally, and in a business point of view. The 
capacious wharf, built specially to receive this freight is nearly 
completed, and when finished will be one of the very best on the river.

   In view of this great commercial boon and boom a public meeting of 
citizens of Nebraska City was held on the 25th of February at which 
resolutions were adopted pledging it by the written obligation of "the 
mayors of the three cities" -- presumably Nebraska City proper, South 
Nebraska City, and -- Kearney City -- in the sum of $100,000, that the 
levee should be finished by the opening of navigation, and that a 
committee of thirteen should be appointed to carry out the resolution that 
"the business of dram selling is demoralizing illegal, and a public 
nuisance, and we heartily approve of the condition imposed of their 
suppression." The committee of thirteen were pledged "to take immediate 
and efficient measures to abate the nuisances, wherever they arise in this 
locality, and to maintain the law in our community by moral suasion if 
possible and that failing by every other lawful and honorable means."

   In glorification over this contract, the same,

(57. James Goodwin located on Salt creek in the spring of 1857.)

(58. James L. Davison, pioneer of 1857.)

Page 91

[image caption: FREIGHTING SCENES ALONG THE OREGON TRAIL The lower view 
represents the freighting train known as "Bull of the Woods," owned by 
Alexander and James Carlisle. From a photograph taken on Main street, 
Nebraska City, looking east from Sixth street, and loaned by Mr. 0. C. 
Morton. This train consisted of twenty-five wagons with six mules to each 
wagon, and was considered one of the finest outfits known to freighters.]

Page 92

paper, of February 27, 1858, announces that in the coming months of April, 
May, June, and July two thousand wagons, hauled by sixteen thousand 
cattle, hitched up with two acres of ox yokes and driven by two thousand 
ox drivers would start across the Plains. The item promises to the 
citizens a season of grand opera, when "Bellows Falls, or the Glory of a 
Bovine Jehu" would be presented nightly.

   The Nebraska City News leaves in unexplained ambiguity the question 
whether the advantage of the Nebraska City over the Leavenworth route lay 
in d