Settlement Trails

The trails forged by the early pioneers moving westward through Nebraska and Kansas were often used as routes to points farther west, particularly Oregon and California. These newly formed “roads” demanded a determination to overcome smothering dust, wide rivers, alkali water, and steep ascents and descents that tested the strength and stability of both wagons and teams, perils that did not stop the tide of new settlers.

Sometimes geography cooperated with the travelers. Kansas offered few barriers and South Pass in Wyoming, the route of present-day I-80, seems engineered by nature to provide the easiest access over the Continental Divide. In an 1851 diary entry Amelia Hadley wrote, “There we saw the far famed south pass, but did not see it until we had passed it for I was all the time looking for some narrow place that would almost take your breath away to get through but was disappointed.” (1)

The State of Kansas: A Home for Immigrants
Courtesy Kansas State Historical Society

Kansas, particularly, advertised its natural resources for settlers with brochures and publications such as The State of Kansas. A Home for Immigrants. Agricultural, Mineral and Commercial Resources of the State. Great Inducements Offered To Persons Desiring Homes In A New Country. The Kansas Bureau of Immigration noted in 1865, “The climate in Kansas is, without exception, the most desirable in the United States…The grass is green in the forests and on the prairies until midwinter…herds of horses, mules and cattle roam at large during the entire winter, without any additional feed or care….During the summer there is always a cool, refreshing breeze which makes the hottest days and nights pleasant and delightful.”

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Map of the Oregon Trail and Overland Stage Routes, 1922
Courtesy American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming

The Oregon Trail to the north was less idyllic. Wagons fell apart and numerous grave markers along the route attest to the many victims of cholera that plagued the immigrants. In the words of Sarah Sutton’s diary, 1854: “We stoped for the night…sun about two hours high, here we found a mans skull and bones, and a bullet hole in the forehead, and A short distance from it found his cloathing [sic], an oil coat and some shirts and 2 or 3 pounds of tobacco, a knife, a pair of goggles, ink stand and soforth. We think if Indians killed him they would have taken his things, but the circumstance is unknown to us at present.” Two months later Sarah wrote: “…noon’d at a grave yard where there is 10 died August 1852 here is the grave of Mary Elen Orchard, great has been the suffering of man and beast at this place…we cross’d snake river at A new ferry, and came [to] …one of the most wretched roads any person ever traveld …we are now on Grasshoper creek, on the desert of death, and dispair.”(2)

Mormon Party Near Fort Bridger Courtesy William Henry Jackson Collection, Scotts Bluff National Monument

Religious fervor drove some of the earliest travelers on the settlement trails. Narcissa and Marcus Whitman and Henry and Eliza Spalding used the Oregon Trail in the 1830s, headed to the Northwest to establish a Presbyterian mission. In an 1834 letter Marcus Whitman declared, "I regard the Missionary cause as based upon…the commands of the Lord Jesus Christ…I regard the Heathen as not having retained the knowledge of the true God as perishing as described by St Paul. I esteem it in the duty of every Christian to seek the advansement of the caus of Christ…I am willing to go to any field of usefulness…"(3)

The great Mormon migration to the Salt Lake Valley began in 1847. In 1855 the leadership of the Latter Day Saints issued an invitation: "Let...all the Saints who can gather up for Zion and come while the way is open before them; let the poor also come...on foot, with handcarts or wheelbarrows; let them gird up their loins and walk through, and nothing shall hinder or stay them."(4)

But despite such assurances, John Chislett of the Fourth Handcart Company recorded the ordeal of his group in 1856: "At first the deaths occurred slowly and irregularly, but in a few days at more frequent intervals, until we soon thought it unusual to leave campground without burying one or more persons...In the morning the snow was over a foot deep. Our cattle strayed widely during the storm and some of them died...but worse, five persons of both sexes lay in the cold embrace of death...sixty-seven died on the journey, ...one-sixth our number."(5)

Postcard of Ezra Meeker used to commemorate his efforts to place markers along the route of the Oregon Trail. Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society

The Great Platte River Road through Nebraska and Wyoming was the main corridor of America's westward expansion. The Trapper's Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Road, the Pony Express route, and the military road from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Laramie--all converged in the broad valley of the Platte. This was the chosen transcontinental route of the covered wagon migration of 1841-1866, and traversing the country on it was one of the epic adventures of American history. “Worn deep and wide by the migration of 300 thousand people lined by the graves of 20,000 dead, witness of romance and tragedy, the Oregon Trail is unique in history, and will always be sacred to the memories of the pioneers.” (6)

Broad, flat, treeless, and desolate, the Platte valley nevertheless attracted settlers who saw profit in stopping to be a part of the new towns springing up behind the railroad construction. They built farms out of the prairie; a family’s first shelter was often a sod house. Given the shortage of timber or stone, the prairie sod provided a strong and lasting structure. This family has planted trees, put up barbed wire fencing, and added onto the house. This home was doubtless built with a tool like the sod cutter from the museum in Glendo, Wyoming.

Sod House Courtesy Colorado Historical Society
Sod Roof Cutter Courtesy Laramie Peak Museum

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1. Holmes, Kenneth L. ed. (1984) Covered wagon women (3). Glendale, Calif. : Arthur H. Clark Co.

2. Holmes, Kenneth L. ed. (1984) Covered wagon women (7). Glendale, Calif. : Arthur H. Clark Co.

PBS."The West - Marcus and Narcissa Whitman." New Perspectives on the West. Retrieved from PBS web site.

4. First Presidency of the Church of Latter Day Saints. (1855) "Thirteenth General Epistle of the Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, to the Saints in the valleys of the mountains, and those scattered abroad throughout the earth."

5. Stenhouse, T.B. (1904) The Rocky Mountain Saints. Salt Lake City: Shephard Book Company.

6. Meeker, Ezra. (1922) Ox-team days on the Oregon Trail. Yonkers-on-Hudson, N.Y.: World Book Co. Retrieved from Washington Secretary of State - Washington History