The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 1,600 mi (2,600 km) across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers to Wyoming. The trail has several splits and cutoffs for alternative routes around major landforms and to different destinations, with a combined length of over 5,000 mi (8,000 km).
Introduction
By 1847, two former fur trading frontier forts marked trailheads for major alternative routes through Utah and Wyoming to Northern California. The first was Jim Bridger's Fort Bridger (est. 1842) in present-day Wyoming on the Green River, where the Mormon Trail turned southwest over the Wasatch Range to the newly established Salt Lake City, Utah. From Salt Lake the Salt Lake Cutoff (est. 1848) went north and west of the Great Salt Lake and rejoined the California Trail in the City of Rocks in present-day Idaho.
The main Oregon and California Trails crossed the Yellow River on several different ferries and trails (cutoffs) that led to or bypassed Fort Bridger and then crossed over a range of hills to the Great Basin drainage of the Bear River (Great Salt Lake). Just past present-day Soda Springs, Idaho, both trails initially turned northwest, following the Portneuf River (Idaho) valley to the British Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Hall (est. 1836) on the Snake River in present-day Idaho. From Fort Hall the Oregon and California trails went about 50 miles (80 km) southwest along the Snake River Valley to another "parting of the ways" trail junction at the junction of the Raft and Snake rivers. The California Trail from the junction followed the Raft River to the City of Rocks in Idaho near the present Nevada-Idaho-Utah tripoint. The Salt Lake and Fort Hall routes were about the same length: about 190 miles (310 km).
From the City of Rocks the trail went into the present state of Utah following the South Fork of Junction Creek. From there the trail followed along a series of small streams, such as Thousand Springs Creek in the present state of Nevada until approaching present-day Wells, Nevada, where they met the Humboldt River. By following the crooked, meandering Humboldt River Valley west across the arid Great Basin, emigrants were able to get the water, grass, and wood they needed for themselves and their teams. The water turned increasingly alkaline as they progressed down the Humboldt, and there were almost no trees. "Firewood" usually consisted of broken brush, and the grass was sparse and dried out. Few travelers liked the Humboldt River Valley passage.
[The] Humboldt is not good for man nor beast ... and there is not timber enough in three hundred miles of its desolate valley to make a snuff-box, or sufficient vegetation along its banks to shade a rabbit, while its waters contain the alkali to make soap for a nation.
At the end of the Humboldt River, where it disappeared into the alkaline Humboldt Sink, travelers had to cross the deadly Forty Mile Desert before finding either the Truckee River or Carson River in the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada that were the last major obstacles before entering Northern California.
An alternative route across the present states of Utah and Nevada that bypassed both Fort Hall and the Humboldt River trails was developed in 1859. This route, the Central Overland Route, which was about 280 miles (450 km) shorter and more than 10 days quicker, went south of the Great Salt Lake and across the middle of present-day Utah and Nevada through a series of springs and small streams. The route went south from Salt Lake City across the Jordan River to Fairfield, Utah, then west-southwest past Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Callao, Utah, Ibapah, Utah, to Ely, Nevada, then across Nevada to Carson City, Nevada. (Today's U.S. Route 50 in Nevada roughly follows this route.) (See: Pony Express Map) In addition to immigrants and migrants from the East, after 1859 the Pony Express, Overland stages and the First Transcontinental Telegraph (1861) all followed this route with minor deviations.
Once in Western Nevada and Eastern California, the pioneers worked out several paths over the rugged Carson Range and Sierra Nevada into the gold fields, settlements and cities of northern California. The main routes initially (1846–1848) were the Truckee Trail to the Sacramento Valley and after about 1849 the Carson Trail route to the American River and the Placerville, California gold digging region.
Starting about 1859, the Johnson Cutoff (Placerville Route, est. 1850–1851) and the Henness Pass Route (est. 1853) across the Sierra were greatly improved and developed. These main roads across the Sierra were both toll roads so there were funds to pay for maintenance and upkeep on the roads. These toll roads were also used to carry cargo west to east from California to Nevada, as thousands of tons of supplies were needed by the gold and silver miners, etc. working on the Comstock Lode (1859–1888) near the present Virginia City, Nevada. The Johnson Cutoff, from Placerville to Carson City along today's U.S. Route 50 in California, was used by the Pony Express (1860–61) year-round and in the summer by the stage lines (1860–1869). It was the only overland route from the East to California that could be kept partially open for at least horse traffic in the winter.
The California Trail was heavily used from 1845 until several years after the end of the American Civil War; in 1869 several rugged wagon routes were established across the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada to different parts of northern California. After about 1848 the most popular route was the Carson Route which, while rugged, was still easier than most others and entered California in the middle of the gold fields. The trail was heavily used in the summers until the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in 1869 by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads. Trail traffic rapidly fell off as the cross-country trip was much quicker and easier by train—about seven days. The economy class fare across the western United States of about $69 was affordable by most California-bound travelers.
The trail was used by about 2,700 settlers from 1846 up to 1849. These settlers were instrumental in helping convert California to a U.S. possession. Volunteer members of John C. Frémont's California Battalion assisted the Pacific Squadron's sailors and marines in 1846 and 1847 in conquering California in the Mexican–American War. After the discovery of gold in January 1848, word spread about the California Gold Rush. Starting in late 1848 until 1869, more than 250,000 businessmen, farmers, pioneers and miners passed over the California Trail to California. The traffic was so heavy that in two years the new settlers added so many people to California that by 1850 it qualified for admission as the 31st state with 120,000 residents. The Trail travelers were added to those migrants going by wagon from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, California, in winter, the travelers down the Gila River trail in Arizona, and those traveling by sea routes around Cape Horn and the Strait of Magellan, or by sea and then across the Isthmus of Panama, Nicaragua, or Mexico, and then by sea to California. Roughly half of California's new settlers came by trail and the other half by sea.
The original route had many branches and cutoffs, encompassing about 5,500 miles (8,900 km) in total. About 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of the rutted traces of these trails remain in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, and California as historical evidence of the great mass migration westward. Portions of the trail are now preserved by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the National Park Service (NPS) as the California National Historic Trail and marked by BLM, NPS and the many state organizations of the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA). Maps put out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) show the network of rivers followed to get to California.
Establishment (1811–1840)
The beginnings of the California and Oregon Trails were laid out by mountain men and fur traders from about 1811 to 1840 and were only passable initially on foot or by horseback. South Pass, the easiest pass over the U.S. continental divide of the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean drainages, was discovered by Robert Stuart and his party of seven in 1812 while he was taking a message from the west to the east back to John Jacob Astor about the need for a new ship to supply Fort Astoria on the Columbia River—their supply ship Tonquin had blown up. In 1824, fur trappers Jedediah Smith and Thomas Fitzpatrick rediscovered the South Pass as well as the Sweetwater, North Platte and Platte River Valleys connecting to the Missouri River.
British fur traders primarily used the Columbia and Snake rivers to take their supplies to their trading posts. After 1824, U.S. fur traders had discovered and developed first pack and then wagon trails along the Platte, North Platte, Sweetwater and Big Sandy River (Wyoming) to the Green River (Colorado River) where they often held their annual Rocky Mountain Rendezvous (1827–1840) held by a fur trading company at which U.S. trappers, mountain men and Indians sold and traded their furs and hides and replenished their supplies they had used up in the previous year.
A rendezvous typically only lasted a few weeks and was known to be a lively, joyous place, where nearly all were allowed—free trappers, Native Americans, native trapper wives and children, travelers, and later on, even tourists who would venture from even as far as Europe to observe the games and festivities. Trapper Jim Beckwourth describes: "Mirth, songs, dancing, shouting, trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target-shooting, yarns, frolic, with all sorts of drinking and gambling extravagances that white men or Indians could invent." Initially from about 1825 to 1834 the fur traders used pack trains to carry their supplies in and the traded furs out.
Beginnings
Sections of what became the California Trail route were discovered and developed by American fur traders including Kit Carson, Joseph R. Walker, and Jedediah Smith, who often worked with the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and after 1834 by the American Fur Company and explored widely in the west. Canadian Hudson's Bay Company trappers led by Peter Skene Ogden and others scouted the Humboldt River off and on from about 1830 to 1840—little of their explorations was known. A few U.S. and British fur trappers and traders had explored what is now called the Humboldt River (named Mary's River by Ogden) that crosses most of the present state of Nevada and provides a natural corridor to western Nevada and eastern California.
The Humboldt River was of little interest to the trappers as it was hard to get to, dead ended in an alkali sink, and had few beavers. The details of the Humboldt River and how to get to it was known to only a few trappers. When trapping largely ceased in the 1840s due to a change in men's hat style that didn't use the felt from beaver's fur there was a number of out of work fur trappers and traders who were familiar with many of the Indians, trails, and rivers in the west.
In 1832, Captain Benjamin Bonneville, a United States Military Academy graduate on temporary leave, followed the fur traders paths along the valleys of the Platte, North Platte and Sweetwater Rivers to South Pass (Wyoming) with a fur trader's caravan of 110 men and 20 wagons over and on to the Green River—the first wagons over South Pass.
In the spring of 1833, Captain Benjamin Bonneville sent a party of men under former fur trapper and "now" explorer Joseph R. Walker to explore the Great Salt Lake desert and Big Basin and attempt to find an overland route to California. Eventually the party re-discovered the Humboldt River crossing much of present-day Nevada. After crossing the hot and dry Forty Mile Desert they passed through the Carson River Canyon across the Carson Range and ascended the Sierra Nevada. They descended from the Sierra via the Stanislaus River drainage to the Central Valley of California and proceeded on west as far as Monterey, California—the Californio capital. His return route from California went across the southern Sierra mountains via what's named now Walker Pass—named by U.S. Army topographic engineer, explorer, adventurer, and map maker John C. Frémont.
The Humboldt River Valley was key to forming a usable California Trail. The Humboldt River with its water and grass needed by the livestock (oxen, mules horses and later cattle) and emigrants provided a key link west to northern California. One of several "parting of the ways" that split the Oregon and California Trails was eventually established at the Snake River and Raft River junctions in what is now Idaho. The Raft River, Junction Creek in the future states of Idaho and Utah and Thousand Springs Creek in the future states of Nevada and Utah provided the usable trail link between the Snake and Humboldt Rivers.
After about 1832, a rough wagon trail had been blazed to the Green River—the chief tributary of the Colorado River. After 1832, the fur traders often brought wagon loads of supplies to trade with the white and Native American fur trappers at their annual rendezvous usually somewhere on the Green River. They returned to the Missouri River towns by following their rough trail in reverse. The future Oregon/California wagon trail had minimal improvements, usually limited to partially filling in impassable gullys, etc. By 1836, when the first Oregon migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been scouted and roughed out to Fort Hall, Idaho. In July 1836, missionary wives Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spalding were the first white pioneer women to cross South Pass on their way to Oregon Territory via Fort Hall. They left their wagons at Fort Hall and went the rest of the way by pack train and boats down the Columbia River as recommended by the Hudson's Bay Company trappers at Fort Hall.
As early as 1837, John Marsh, who was the first American doctor in California and the owner of the large Rancho Los Meganos, realized that owning a great rancho was problematic if he could not hold it. The corrupt and unpredictable rulings by courts in California (then part of Mexico) made this questionable. With evidence that the Russians, French and English were preparing to seize the province, he determined to make it a part of the United States. He felt that the best way to go about this was to encourage emigration by Americans to California, and in this way the history of Texas would be repeated.
Marsh conducted a letter-writing campaign espousing the California climate, soil and other reasons to settle there, as well as the best route to follow (the California Trail), which became known as "Marsh's route." His letters were read, reread, passed around, and printed in newspapers throughout the country, and started the first significant immigration to California. The trail ended at his ranch, and he invited immigrants to stay on his ranch until they could get settled, and assisted in their obtaining passports.
After ushering in the period of organized emigration to California, Marsh helped take California from the last Mexican governor, thereby paving the way to California's ultimate acquisition by the United States.
Bartleson–Bidwell Party
The first recorded party to use part of the California Trail to get to California was the Bartleson–Bidwell Party in 1841. They left Missouri with 69 people and reasonably easily reached the future site of Soda Springs, Idaho on the Bear River by following experienced trapper Thomas "Broken-hand" Fitzpatrick on his way to Fort Hall. Near Soda Springs the Bear River swung southwest towards the Great Salt Lake and the regular Oregon Trail headed northwest out of the Big Basin drainage and into the Portneuf River (Idaho) drainage to Fort Hall on the Snake River.
About half of the party elected to attempt to continue by wagon to California and half elected to go to Oregon on the more established Oregon Trail. The California-bound travelers (including one woman and one child), knew only that California was west of them and there was reportedly a river across most of the 'Big Basin' that led part of the way to California. Without guides or maps, they traveled down the Bear River as it looped southwest through Cache Valley, Utah. When they found the Bear River terminating in the Great Salt Lake, they traveled west across the Big Basin through the rough and sparse semi-desert north of the Great Salt Lake.
After crossing most of what would become the state of Utah and passing into the future state of Nevada, they missed the head of the Humboldt River and abandoned their wagons in Nevada at Big Spring at the foot of the Pequop Mountains. They continued west using their oxen and mules as pack animals eventually finding the Humboldt River and followed it west to its termination in an alkali sink near present-day Lovelock, Nevada.
After crossing the difficult Forty Mile Desert they turned to the south on the east side of the Sierra until they reached the Walker River draining east out of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They followed the Walker westward as they ascended over the rugged Sierra Nevada mountains roughly in the same region crossed by Jedediah Smith in 1828. They were able to finish their rugged trip over the Sierra and into the future state of California by killing and eating many of their oxen for food. Everyone survived the journey.
Joseph Chiles
Joseph B. Chiles, a member of the Bartleson–Bidwell Party, returned east in 1842 and organized the first of his seven California-bound immigrant companies in 1843. Following the Oregon Trail to Fort Bridger, the Chiles company enlisted mountain man Joseph R. Walker as a guide. Chiles and Walker split the company into two groups. Walker led the company with the wagons west toward California by following the Oregon Trail to Fort Hall, Idaho, and turning west off the Oregon trail at the Snake River, Raft River junction. At the head of the Raft River they crossed a divide into the Big Basin drainage and followed a series of streams like Thousand Springs Creek in what is now Nevada to the Humboldt River valley near today's Wells, Nevada.
They blazed a wagon trail down the Humboldt River Valley and across Forty Mile Desert until they hit the Carson River. Here instead of immediately attempting to cross the Sierra by following the Carson River as it came out of the mountains they turned south, traveling east of the Sierra along what is now roughly the Nevada and California border—about where U.S. Route 395 in California is today.
With scarce provisions, winter approaching and failing draft animals, by the end of 1843 they had traveled south almost 300 miles (480 km) on the east side of the Sierra before they abandoned their wagons near Owens Lake in eastern central California and proceeded by pack train to make a December crossing of the Sierra Nevada mountains over Walker Pass 35°39′47″N 118°1′37″W on California State Route 178) in the southeast Sierra, an arduous route used by almost no one else.
Trying to find a different route, Chiles led the rest of the settlers in a pack train party down the Oregon Trail to where it intersected the Malheur River in eastern Oregon which he then followed across Oregon to California.
John Fremont
Another mixed party on horseback of U.S. Army topographers, hunters, scouts, etc. of about 50 men in 1843–1844 led by U.S. Army Colonel John C. Frémont of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and his chief scout Kit Carson took their exploration company down the Humboldt River, crossing Forty Mile Desert and then following what is now called the Carson River across the Carson Range that is east of what is now called Lake Tahoe—previously seen but not explored by Fremont from a peak near what is now called Carson Pass.
They made a winter crossing of the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada in February 1843. From Carson pass they followed the northern Sierra's southern slopes, to minimize snow depth, of what is now called the American River Valley down to Sutter's Fort located near what is now Sacramento, California. Fremont took the data gathered by his topographers and map makers in his 1843–1844 and 1846–1847 explorations of much of the American west to create and publish (by order of Congress) the first "decent" map of California and Oregon in 1848.
First wagons to cross
The first group to cross the Sierra with their wagons was the Stephens–Townsend–Murphy Party of 1844. They departed from the Oregon Trail along the Snake River by following the Raft River to the City of Rocks in Idaho and then passed over the Big Basin continental divide and used a series of springs and small streams in what is now Nevada to get to the Humboldt River near where the town of Wells, Nevada is now.
They followed the Humboldt River across Nevada and the future Truckee Trail Route across the rugged Forty Mile Desert and along the Truckee River to the foot of the Sierra. They got over the Sierra at Donner Pass by unloading the wagons and packing the contents to the top using their ox teams as pack animals. The wagons were then partially dis-assembled and then pulled by multiple teams of oxen up the steep slopes and cliffs. Some wagons were left at Donner Lake. Once on top, the remaining wagons were reassembled and reloaded for their trip to Sutter's Fort (Sacramento, California).
They were caught by early winter snows and abandoned their wagons near Emigrant Gap and had to hike out of the Sierra after being rescued by a party from Sutter's Fort on February 24, 1845. Their abandoned wagons were retrieved in the spring of 1845 and pulled the rest of the way to Sutter's Fort. A usable but very rough wagon route had finally been worked out along the Humboldt River and the rugged, hot and dry Forty Mile Desert across Nevada and over the rugged and steep Sierra Nevada by California-bound settlers. In the following years, several other rugged routes over the Sierra were developed.
Hastings Cutoff
Pioneered by Lansford Hastings in 1846, the Hastings Cutoff left the California Trail at Fort Bridger in Wyoming. In 1846 the Harlan-Young party, guided by Hastings, passed successfully through the rugged, narrow, rock-filled Weber Canyon to get over the Wasatch Range. In a few places the wagons had to be floated down the river in some narrow spots and the wagons had to be pried over large rocks in many places.
Passing the future site of Ogden, Utah and Salt Lake City, Utah Hastings party proceeded south of the Great Salt Lake and then across about 80 miles (130 km) of waterless Bonneville Salt Flats and around the Ruby Mountains in Nevada before getting to the Humboldt River Valley California trail. The severely water-challenged Hastings Cutoff trail across the Great Salt Lake's salt flats rejoined the California Trail about 7 miles (11 km) west of modern-day Elko, Nevada. The party led by Hastings were just two weeks ahead of the Donner Party but did successfully get to California before snow closed the passes and stranded the Donner Party in the Sierra.
As recommended by a message from Hastings after he got through Weber canyon, another branch of the Hastings trail was cut across the Wasatch Range by the Donner Party. Their rough trail required clearing a very rough wagon trail through thick brush down Emigration Canyon to get into the Salt Lake Valley. To avoid cutting too much brush in some places they used multiple ox teams to pull wagons up steep slopes to get around brush loaded canyon sections. Cutting this rough trail slowed the Donner Party down by about two weeks—Hastings successfully navigated the rugged Weber Canyon in about four days.
The Mormon Trail over the Wasatch Mountains followed roughly the same path as the Donner Party trail of 1846 but they built a much better trail with many more workers in 1847 to get to the Salt Lake valley with much less difficulty — this was their main route to and from their Salt Lake communities. The Weber Canyon trail was judged too rugged for regular use without a lot of work—later done by Mormon workers on the first transcontinental railroad in 1868–1869.
All of the Hastings Cutoffs to California were found to be very hard on the wagons, livestock and travelers as well as being longer, harder, and slower to traverse than the regular trail and was largely abandoned after 1846. It was discovered by some hurrying travelers in 1849 (before the experience of the 1846 travelers was widely known) that during a wet year, wagons could not be pulled across the Great Salt Lake Desert; it was too soft.
Salt Lake Cutoff
In 1848, the Salt Lake Cutoff was discovered by returning Mormon Battalion soldiers and others from the City of Rocks (in the future state of Idaho) to the northwest of the Great Salt Lake and on to Salt Lake City. This cutoff allowed travelers to use the Mormon Trail from Fort Bridger over the Wasatch Range to Salt Lake City and back to the California Trail. In Salt Lake they could get repairs and fresh supplies and livestock by trade or cash.
The Mormons were trying to establish new Mormon communities in Utah and needed almost everything then. The trail from Fort Bridger to Salt Lake City and over the Salt Lake Cutoff was about 180 miles (290 km) before it rejoined the California Trail near the City of Rocks in Idaho. This cutoff had adequate water and grass, and many thousands of travelers used this cutoff for years. The "regular" California Trail from Fort Bridger via Fort Hall on the Snake River and on to the City of Rocks was within a few miles of being the same distance as going to Salt Lake City and on to the City of Rocks via the Salt Lake Cutoff.
Central Overland Route
In April 1859, an expedition of U.S. Corp of Topographical Engineers led by U.S. Army Captain James H. Simpson left U.S. Army's Camp Floyd (Utah) (now Fairfield, Utah) in central Utah to establish an army western supply route across the Great Basin to California. Upon his return in early August 1859, Simpson reported that he had surveyed what became the Central Overland Route from Camp Floyd to Genoa, Nevada. This route went through central Nevada roughly where U.S. Route 50 goes today from Carson City, Nevada, to Ely, Nevada. From Ely the route is approximated today by the roads to Ibapah, Utah, Callao, Utah, Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Fairfield, Utah to Salt Lake City, Utah (See: Pony Express Map and Pony Express auto route)
The Central Overland Route was about 280 miles (450 km) shorter than the 'standard' California Trail Humboldt River route. This Central Overland Route, with minor modifications was used by settler's wagon trains, the Pony Express, stagecoach lines and the First Transcontinental Telegraph after 1859.
Literary descriptions
Several accounts of travel along the Central Overland Route have been published. In July 1859, Horace Greeley made the trip, at a time when Chorpenning was using only the eastern segment (they reconnected with the main California Trail near present-day Beowawe, Nevada). Greeley published his detailed observations in his 1860 book An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco.
In October 1860, the English explorer Richard Burton traveled the entire route at a time when the Pony Express was operating. He gave detailed descriptions of each of the way stations in his 1861 book The City of the Saints, Across the Rocky Mountains to California.
Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) traveled the route in the summer of 1861 with his brother Orion on their way to Nevada's new territorial capital in Carson City, Nevada, but provided only sparse descriptions of the road in his 1872 book Roughing It.