| Idaho (Ada County), Boise — 359 — Beaver Dick's Ferry | | | In 1863 and 1864, overland packers hauling supplies from Salt Lake City to Idaho City crossed here and took a direct route northward to More's Creek.
They cut a steep grade from the Oregon Trail down to Beaver Dick's Ferry, which served a crossing only a short distance below here. After gold rush excitement ended, Idaho City traffic came on through Boise and used a toll road further north to Boise Basin. — Map (db m22641) | | Idaho (Ada County), Boise — 375 — Oregon Trail | | | Indians, trappers, and emigrants who came this way before 1900 used a more direct route to get between Boise and Glenns Ferry. Their road still can be seen at Bonneville Point 5 miles from here. Following close to a line of hills bordering a broad, rolling plain, their route had water and grass essential for horses and oxen. It also gave them a spectacular view of Boise valley. To see that site, follow directional signs when you reach Interchange 64 at Black's Creek, 1 mile beyond here. — Map (db m22181) | | Idaho (Ada County), Boise — 151 — The Oregon Trail | | | The Oregon Trail is still clearly visible coming off the rimrock across the river. Here the west bound emigrants after 1840 came gratefully down into this green valley.
The first cart passed here with Spalding and Whitman, pioneer missionaries, in 1836. By the middle 1840's, thousands of emigrant wagons had cut a broad track, later the Overland Road. The tide of travel went down when the railroad was completed in 1884, but the tracks of the wagons and stages can still be followed for miles east in the desert. — Map (db m22639) | | Idaho (Blaine County), Carey — 354 — Goodale's Cutoff | | | When emigrants began to take their westbound wagons along an old Indian and trapper’s trail past this lava, they had to develop a wild and winding road.
At this spot, like many others, they had hardly enough space to get by. At times, they could not avoid lava stretches. But they slowly crept along, leaving their road strewn with parts of broken wagons. J.C. Merrill noted in 1864 that “at one place we were obliged to drive over a huge rock just a little wider than the wagon. Had we . . . — Map (db m4650) | | Kansas (Johnson County), Gardner — 6 — Overland Trails | | | Here US-56 lies directly on the route of the Oregon-California and Santa Fe trails. Nearby, the trails branched. On a rough sign pointing northwest were the words, "Road to Oregon." Another marker directed travelers southwest along the road to Santa Fe.
Between 1840 and 1870 thousands of settlers, miners, and soldiers plodded the 2,000 miles of the Oregon-California Trail from the "jumping off" towns on the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. Diseases such as cholera and smallpox were the . . . — Map (db m21669) | | Kansas (Johnson County), Olathe — Elm Grove Campground | | | For over three decades starting in 1827, Elm Grove Campground, one mile east of near the bridge on Cedar Creek, was an important frontier camp site. Thousands of Santa Fe traders, Oregon and California emigrants, missionaries, mountain men, soldiers and '49ers camped at Elm Grove including such frontier notables as John C Fremont, William Bent, Tom Fitzpatrick, Francis Parkman, and Philip St. George Cooke.
Elm Grove Campground, originally named caravan grove, began in 1827 as a result of the . . . — Map (db m20093) | | Kansas (Johnson County), Overland Park — Santa Fe and Oregon Trails | | | Both the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails crossed here, northeast to southwest, beginning 1821. The trails took separate courses farther west. A route through Kansas Territory was opened north of here in the 1830's after the founding of Westport, Mo. Long after that became the main one, this route continued in use by pioneers and tradesmen out of Independence, Mo. — Map (db m20213) | | Kansas (Shawnee County), Topeka — 15 — Capital of Kansas | | | Topeka was founded in 1854 at the site of Papan's Ferry where a branch of the Oregon Trail crossed the Kansas river as early as 1842. Anti-slavery leaders framed the Topeka Constitution, 1855, in the first attempt to organize a state government. The next year their legislature was dispersed by U.S. dragoons under orders from President Franklin Pierce. (So Pierce was omitted when Topeka named streets after the Presidents.) In the late 1850's negroes bound north on the "underground railway" were . . . — Map (db m20479) | | Missouri (Jackson County), Kansas City — McCoy's Trading Post | | | Near this point John McCoy built a log trading post in 1833 which launched the settlement of Westport, with the town becoming the westernmost point of American civilization. From Westport, the Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trails reached out as tentacles of the nation's growth, extending to the Pacific Coast and into Mexico. Westport's street's, shops and hotels bustled with traders, trappers, missionaries, Indians and gold prospectors forging west. Kit Carson, Jim Bridger and John Sutter . . . — Map (db m21064) | | Missouri (Jackson County), Kansas City — New Santa Fe / Trail Remnants | | | (black marker)
New Santa Fe, also known as Little Santa Fe, was not much more than an Indian settlement when the first wagon trains passed through on the Santa Fe Trail in the early 1820's. A popular stopping place because of its grass, water and room for camping, it became a wagon train outfitting station on the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails. Originally called Blue Camp 20 because it was near the Little Blue River and approximately 20 miles from Independence, Missouri, the . . . — Map (db m20724) | | Missouri (Jackson County), Kansas City — The Albert G. Boone Store | | |
(Main Marker)
Originally used as an outfitting store for wagon trains, this building was completed in 1850 by Indian traders George and William Ewing and was sold in 1854 to Albert Gallatin Boone for $7,000. Boone operated the store from 1854 to 1859.
Born in Kentucky in 1806, Boone was a mountain man, trader, and grandson of the famous Daniel Boone. In 1838, he received a license to trade with the Delaware, Kansa, Shawnee and Kickapoo tribes. His ability to speak fluent . . . — Map (db m20921) | | Nebraska (Garden County), Lewellen — Ash Hollow | | | Ash Hollow was famous on the Oregon Trail. A branch of the trail ran northwestward from the Lower California Crossing of the South Platte River a few miles west of Brule, and descended here into the North Platte Valley. The hollow, named for a growth of ash trees, was entered by Windlass Hill to the south. Wagons had to be eased down its steep slope by ropes.
Ash Hollow with its water, wood and grass was a welcome relief after the arduous trip from the South Platte and the travelers . . . — Map (db m2503) | | Nebraska (Garden County), Lewellen — Windlass Hill Pioneer Homestead | | | The stones surrounding this marker are the remains of the homestead dwelling of Reverend Dennis B. Clary, a pioneer Methodist Minister, who received final patent for his homestead Mar 22, 1899. Mr. Clary was born September 1st 1822, in Maryland and immigrated to Nebraska in 1885. Using a horse drawn cart fashioned from available materials he hauled stone to this site for a two room home. For years this was a land mark in Ash Hollow and marked the location of Windlass Hill. It was a popular . . . — Map (db m2501) | | Washington (Walla Walla County), Walla Walla — Wai-i-lat-pu | | | A short distance to the south, near the Walla Walla River, is Wai-i-lat-pu, "The Place of the People of the Rye Grass,” a mission founded among the Cayuse Indians of the Walla Walla Valley in 1836 by Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa.
As increasing numbers of emigrants moved into the Oregon Country during the 1840’s, Whitman Mission became an important station on the Oregon Trail. Cultural differences, climaxed by a measles epidemic that killed many Cayuse, ended the missionary . . . — Map (db m3766) | | Wyoming (Platte County), Guernsey — Oregon Trail Ruts — Registered National Historic Landmark | | | Wagon wheels cut solid rock, carving a memorial to Empire Builders. what manner of men and beasts impelled conveyances weighting on those griding wheels? Look! A line of shadows crossing boundless wilderness.
Foremost, nimble mules drawing their carts, come poised Montain Men carrying trade goods to a fur fair -- the Rendezvous. So, in 1830, Bill Sublette turns the first wheels from St. Louis to the Rocky Mountains! Following his faint trail, a decade later and on throught the 1860's, . . . — Map (db m5748) | | Wyoming (Platte County), Guernsey — Register Cliff | | | The wayfarer's penchant for inscribing names and dates on prominent landmarks excites the interest of his descendants. Regrettably, marks of historic value are often effaced by later opportunists.
Along the Oregon Trail, famed transcontinental route of the 19th century, pertinent dates are from the 1820's through the 1860's. Three outstanding recording areas exist within Wyoming: Register Cliff here; Independence Rock, 180 miles west; and Names Hill, a further 175 miles along the Trail's . . . — Map (db m5749) |
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