Appendix 7
Overland migrations - Oregon, California and Mormon Trails – (1841-1869)
The three largest overland trails leading to the settlement of the west were the Oregon, California and Mormon (Utah) Trails. Estimates vary, but it appears safe to say that from 1840 until the first Transcontinental Railroad crossed the United States (completed at Promontory Point, Utah in 1869 - golden spike); more than 300,000 pioneers would eventually travel these three trails.
The first pioneers headed to Oregon’s lush Willamette Valley in 1841. They were motivated by the prospect of free farm and ranch land in that moderate climate. Well over 40,000 wagon-train pioneers would eventually make their way to Oregon.
Over 70,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (nicknamed Mormons) would eventually use the Mormon Trail from Nauvoo, Illinois to the Great Salt Lake Valley. The first several thousand of that number were driven from their modern Illinois homes in the dead of winter by armed mobs in 1846. The first vanguard of those refugees arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. (Appendix 6 - Commentary).
The Mormon Trail paralleled the Oregon trail through Nebraska to Fort Bridger, Wyoming, then headed in a southwesterly direction through the rugged mountains to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake.
Well over 200,000 pioneers would eventually travel the California Trail. Attracted principally by the California Gold Rush when word got out about gold being discovered at Sutter’s Mill, 50 miles northeast of Sacramento in 1847. The California Trail split off from the Oregon Trail at Raft River, Idaho (southwest of Fort Hall) and headed in a southwesterly direction through the City of Rocks, Idaho; followed the Humboldt River through northern Nevada; then on to the gold fields of northcentral California.
The Oregon and California trails began near Independence, Missouri and passed through present-day Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming before heading in a northwesterly direction through Idaho before the two trails separated.
Initially, Oregon and California emigrants entered Eastern Idaho about 15 miles southeast of Montpelier and proceeded northwest to Soda Springs, then on to the Fort Hall trading post. The National Oregon-California Trail Center in Montpelier, Idaho is an interpretative center located on the site of the original trail.
Soda Springs, named "Beer Springs" by early explorers, because of its carbonated spring water that had the effervescence of beer, was a prominent layover for Oregon and California Trail pioneers. Today, the city of Soda Springs has parks that offer free-flowing fountains of artesian carbonated waters. The Soda Springs Oregon Trail Country Club has preserved the nearby trail’s original wagon ruts.
Fredrick W. Lander, using federal funds, blazed another trail in 1849—the Lander Road-California Trail. This road went over South Pass, Wyoming; entered Idaho about 40 miles northeast of Montpelier; and proceeded almost due west to Fort Hall. This shorter route soon became preferred by most travelers.
From Fort Hall, both the Oregon and California routes followed the south side of the Snake River into Southwestern Idaho; until the trails reached Raft River. Those headed to California headed south to the City of Rocks in Southwestern Idaho, then southwest to California. Those headed to Oregon, continued in a northwesterly direction.
James F. Wilkens, an 1849 California Trail immigrant, gave the unusual geologic area its “City of Rocks” name. Many of the travelers passing through between 1843 and 1869 left axel grease inscriptions that are still visible on the towering granite pillars; remnants of an eroded prehistoric batholith. Wagon ruts and journal accounts also mark the immigrants passing through this stunningly unusual terrain.
The Fort Hall trading post was a welcome supply station for Oregon and California Trail emigrants until 1849, when Benoni Hudspeth founded a California Trail cutoff starting near Soda Springs, Idaho, then proceeding southwest to the City of Rocks; saving 25 miles.
The pioneers taking the Hudspeth Cutoff passed 30 miles to the south of Fort Hall; traveling through present-day Lava Hot Springs where they washed and bathed at the hot mineral springs that Indians and many travelers believed had therapeutic attributes.
By 1855, with Oregon-California immigrant traffic through Fort Hall largely dried-up and the beaver were being trapped-out; the old trading-post closed. Fort Hall was designated a National Landmark on October 15, 1966. Today, Fort Hall is the name of the Shoshone-Bannock Indian Reservation, largely located between Pocatello, American Falls and Blackfoot. Idaho.
Oregon-California Trail emigrants passed through present-day Massacre Rocks State Park (Park) located west of American Falls, and marked their passage with axel grease on the boulders. The Park comprises a thousand acres and borders the Snake River. Its principal features are numerous house-size, smooth boulders that were rolled; polished and deposited there 14,500 years ago during of the great Lake Bonneville flood. (Appendix 6).
The park is also the site where five Oregon-California Trail emigrants died in an Indian ambush on October 9, 1862. The next day, some of the survivors pursued the Indians, losing four more men in a brief battle – the number of Indian casualties is not known.
Commentary: Fort Hall was originally a trading post on the Snake River about 11 miles north of present-day Pocatello. It was constructed in 1834 by Nathanial J Wyeth and named after Wyeth’s financial backer, Henry Hall, a wealthy Bostonian. Wyeth flew a handmade American flag over the fort.
In 1837, Wyeth sold Fort Hall to the British Hudson’s Bay Company which was expanding its footprint in the northwest. The new British owners struck the US flag and raised the United Kingdom’s Union Jack.
Great Britain’s influence in the northwest ended abruptly when the United States and Great Britain signed the Treaty of Oregon on June 15, 1846. The treaty ended Great Britain’s claim to all land north of the 42nd Parallel and established the boundary between the two countries (Canada and the US) at the 49th Parallel.
It is noteworthy that the Hudson’s Bay Company was indirectly responsible for naming Idaho’s capital city, Boise. The Hudson’s Bay Company built a trading post near present-day Parma, Idaho at the confluence of the wooded-river to the east and the Snake River in 1834. The French-Canadian outpost manager, Francois Payette, named the tree-lined river “Boise,” the French word for “wooded” and the new trading post, “Fort Boise.”
US Army explorer and topographical engineer, Captain John C. Freemont and his detachment of troops stayed at Fort Boise circa 1843. He marked the fort as a landmark on his maps; a location where travelers could find safety and rest. Floods destroyed the trading post structure a decade later. (A replica stands in the Parma City Park).
Gold was discovered in the mountains east of present-day Boise in 1862. Over 16,000 fortune hunters were scouring mountain streams the following year. Abraham Lincoln signed the law creating Idaho territory on March 3, 1863.
Four months later, the US Army (the Civil War was raging) ordered Major Pickney Lugenbeel and a detachment of cavalry troops to build a military fort in the area to protect the gold miners and Oregon Trail pioneers from hostile Indians.
Lugenbeel began building his fort on a bench overlooking the Boise River on July 4, 1863. He gave his military fort the same name “Fort Boise” as that of the destroyed trading post shown on Freemont’s maps. Merchants providing goods to the miners immediately platted a new city next to the fort which they named, “Boise City.” The Idaho Territorial Legislature made the city of Boise the territory’s permanent capitol on December 24, 1964.