California Trail

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California Trail

The California Trail was during the 19th century, one of the main routes for miners and settlers from the states east of the Missouri River , through the Midwest to the West of today's United States .

The trail was used by approximately 250,000 settlers and gold prospectors who sought a new future in California from the 1840s . The reason was the largely unpopulated and fertile land in central and northern California and the gold discoveries that triggered the California gold rush in 1848 . The trail was used until the late 1860s when the railroad penetrated the area.

The original trail had numerous branches and covered a total length of over 8,000 km. In the Great Basin there are still 1,600 km of the rutted path as visible evidence of the masses moving west. Portions of the trail are managed by the National Park Service as the California National Historical Trail under the National Trails System .

description

One of the routes runs along the Yuba River

The course of the California Trail and the choice of the individual route options depended on the starting point, the destination in California, and the condition of the draft animals and vehicles. The main route of the trail through the Great Plains was identical to the Oregon and Mormon trails . There the trail ran along the Missouri River , then through Nebraska along the Platte River and North Platte River into what is now Wyoming . From then on the trail followed the Sweetwater River and crossed the North American watershed at South Pass . This is where the California Trail separated from the Mormon Trail. From South Pass the trail led northwest to Fort Hall in what was then Oregon (now in the state of Idaho) on the Snake River .

To the west of Fort Hall (near present-day Pocatello, Idaho ), at the junction of the Raft River with the Snake River, the trail separates from the Oregon Trail and follows the Raft River southwest to present-day Almo, Idaho . It then crosses the City of Rocks and Granite Pass, from where it follows Goose Creek, Little Goose Creek and Rock Spring Creek. The trail passed through Thousand Spring Valley and along West Brush Creek and Willow Creek until it reached the upper reaches of the Humboldt River in northwestern what is now the state of Nevada. From here the trail followed the north bank of the river and crossed the narrow Carlin Canyon, which was almost impassable during floods. In the west of the canyon the trail led up the Emigrant Gap and then down through the Emigrant Canyon to meet the Humboldt River again at Gravelly Ford. There the trail split into two arms that followed the north and south banks of the river. The two arms reunited in the Humboldt Bar.

The Truckee River and Carson River routes

The California Trail split again at the Humboldt Sink . The Truckee River Route continued west through the Forty Mile Desert and reached the Truckee River at what is now Wadsworth, Nevada. This route followed the Truckee River to Donner Lake, crossed the Sierra Ridge through Donner Pass, and then descended the Sierra through Emigrant Gap.

The Carson Trail (also known as the Carson River Route ) ran south through the Forty Mile Desert, touched the western edge of the Carson Sink, and met the Carson River near present-day Fallon, Nevada . The trail then followed the Carson River and crossed the Sierra ridge through the Carson Pass.

Both routes led to Sutter's Fort , which was in what is now Sacramento, California .

Other routes

Less frequently used routes include the Beckwourth Cutoff and the Applegate-Lassen Cutoff . The Beckwourth Cutoff left the Truckee River route at what is now Reno, Nevada , runs north through Beckwourth Pass and down between the north and middle arms of the Feather River .

The Applegate-Lassen Cutoff left the California Trail near today's Rye Patch Reservoir and crossed the Black Rock Desert and High Rock Canyon to Goose Lake. There this route divided into the Lassen Cutoff and the Applegate Trail . The Lassen Cutoff leads south into the Sacramento Valley , along the Pit River. The Applegate Trail heads west to southeast Oregon along the Lost River.

history

When California was under Spanish and Mexican rule, the Great Basin was only partially explored. The hopes for a navigable waterway from the central Rocky Mountains to the Pacific led to the fact that from the late 18th century onwards a river under the name Buenaventura River was entered on the maps of the region. In 1834, Benjamin Bonneville , an officer in the United States Army, sent Joseph Walker further west of the Green River in present-day Utah on a private expedition to the west funded by John Jacob Astor to find a route to California. Walker discovered that the Humboldt River forms a natural artery through the Great Basin.

During the 1840s the trail was used sporadically by settlers. The first known emigrant to use the trail to penetrate California was John Bidwell , who led the Bidwell-Bartleson Party (a small tour group of settlers) in 1841 . Two years later, Joseph Chiles took the same route. In 1844, Caleb Greenwood and the Stephens Townsend Murphy Party were the first to cross the Sierra Nevada with covered wagons . At the beginning of 1844, John Charles Frémont first determined the geography of the country west of the Rockies in connection with a surveying expedition. In 1845 he and Lansford W. Hastings drove hundreds of settlers along the California Trail. The following year Hastings persuaded another settler train to choose its “shortcut” south of the main route.

The sporadic use by individual settlers was followed by a wave of emigrants from 1848 onwards, triggered by gold discoveries in California . In the same year, the United States government acquired the southwestern United States with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo . Only a few months after President James K. Polk made the public announcement of the gold discoveries in the spring of 1849, thousands of prospectors headed west.

In 1857, Latter-day Saints settlers left the Carson River Valley and moved northeast to establish Salt Lake City and nearly 400 other settlements in preparation for the impending war against the United States. The Carson River Valley, through which the California Trail ran, was rid of important infrastructure. Soon, non-Mormon traders started settling in Salt Lake City as well. Many settlers used the city's infrastructure for wintering. Salt Lake City quickly developed into the central commercial and recreational center on the California Trail.

On September 11, 1857, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints along with Paiute Indians committed the Mountain Meadows massacre of a wagon train to California during the Utah War . 120-150 travelers, the majority of whom came from Arkansas, were killed. The massacre took place in southern Utah.

The Central Pacific Railway runs along parts of the California Trail in Nevada , as part of the USA's first transcontinental railroad. In the 20th century the route was used to build the highways. This includes US Highway 40 and later Interstate 80 . Wagon tracks of covered wagons and the names of settlers written on stones with grease can still be seen today in the City of Rocks National Reserve in southern Idaho .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. John D. Unruh, Jr .: The Plains Across. The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 . University of Illinois Press, 1993 (first printed 1979), pp. 297-323