California Trail
Following the Oregon Trail from the Missouri River to the South Pass on the Continental Divide in Wyoming, emigrants bound for California then branched out. Some took a northern route via Fort Hall in Idaho, above the Great Salt Lake; others ventured south around the Great Salt Lake. Either way, emigrants sought the lifeline of the Humboldt River.
On the desert approaches to the Sierra Nevades, the routes again diverged; but all routes or "cut-offs" forced emigrants to face risks and endure severe hardships. In their worst imaginings, they could not suspect what was in store over the next 800 miles. The remaining challenges of the Rockies, weeks of plodding through loose sand, days of little or no water, nights of vigilance againse thieving and sometimes hostile Indians and the backbreaking work of hauling wagons over 70 miles of the Sierra Nevades, haunted by the fear of early snows.
Mormon Trail
Stretched nearly 1,400 miles across prairies, sagebrush flats and mountain barriers. From 1846-1869, this trail carried an estimated 60,000 Mormons westward to Salt Lake City. A later trail, starting in the southwest corner of the Utah territory, connected the various Mormon settlements in southwestern territories to the major temple at St. George.
Oregon Trail
Blazed by fur traders and missionaries, the Oregon Trail remained in use from the early 1830s to the mid-1880s. In 1841, less than a hundred settlers, the Bidwell-Bartleson Expedition, followed the trail to the "Oregon Country," an area in dispute between the United States and Great Britain. By 1847, the dispute was settled and emigration along the trail swelled to 4,000. Wagon trains rolled almost 2,000 miles from the Missouri River to the Dallas settlement located along the Columbia River. With the trailblazing that led to the opening of the Barlow Road between Dallas and Oregon City, the extremely fertile and temperate Willamette Valley opened to settlement.
Montana-bound prospectors and settlers turned north from the Oregon Trail and North Platte River, skirted the Bighorn Mountains, passed through the Crow Indian hunting grounds and wound by was of the Yellowstone River and Gallatin Valley to Virginia City in Idaho. The Bozeman Trail offered dependable water and abundant grass for livestock, but this trail was probably the most dangerous in terms of Indian raids. By late 1866, three army forts guarded the trail in Indian country.
Sante Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail cut across prairie, mountain and desert and reached more than 900 miles from Missouri to New Mexico. It endured for about 61 years, from opening in 1821 to 1880, when the completion of the railroad to Sante Fe put it out of business. Travelers had a choice of two branches: The northern route angled through the Colorado Rockies, a difficult passage for wagons, The southern route (or Cimarron cutoff) shortened the journey by 100 miles but took emigrants far from reliable sources of water. Early in it's history, the Sante Fe Trail was recognized as a primary economic route to Mexican territory, carrying products and livestock.
Westerly routes from Sante Fe and El Paso joined in Apache country to form the Gila Trail. Traversing the deserts of the southwestern frontier, it took a course determined by sources of water and passages through the mountains. Soldiers and settlers, miners and mail carriers, and freighters and outlaws traveled the trail beginning in the 1840s.
Old Spanish Trail
For traveling Mexican caravans between 1829 and 1848, the Old Spanish Trail was known as the shortest path to riches between Los Angeles and Santa Fe. It was a trail of commercial opportunity and western adventure as well as slave trading, horse thieving and raids. The trail route was established along a loose network of Indian footpaths that crossed the wide expanse of the Colorado Plateau and the Mojave Desert. With time, this newly established trade corridor attracted frontiersmen and U.S. military expeditions.
The 2,700 miles of trail which linked Santa Fe with Los Angeles pushed mule caravans to the limit. In the first week on the trail alone, the mules scrambled, swam or dragged their handlers through more than a dozen river crossings. By the time the pack trains reached Los Angeles, they had crossed dune fields in California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado, found their way around the Grand Canyon, skirted the continent’s harshest deserts at Death Valley, and slaked their thirst at Stinking Springs, Salt Creek, Alkali Canyon, Bitter Spring and the Inconsistent River.
