History Lives on in Art

History Lives on in Art. William Henry Jackson slept here.. , In 1866 William Henry Jackson traveled the California Trail as a bullwhacker with a freight wagon train. Although he had no prior experience, Jackson quickly learned to yoke and drive the multiple yokes (pairs) of oxen that pulled each wagon. Seventy years later he returned to dedicate the new Park Service museum on the east side of the pass. By this time he was a well-known photographer, artist and supporter of emigrant trail history. Jackson guided the park rangers to this spot where he and his fellow bullwhackers bedded down for the night. , Using memories of his own experiences, sketches he made during his travels and revisiting the sites, Jackson depicted scenes of trail life from the Missouri River to the west coast. His watercolor paintings grace many books about the trails and most of his collection was donated to Scotts Bluff National Monument in 1949. , How do you memorialize your travels? ,

“Thursday, August 2nd. At noon we corralled…10 miles from Scotts Bluffs, which loom up before us in all their variety of outline. In the P.M. we drove up into the pass that leads through them. We had one of the steepest and worst gulches to drive through we had yet…our camp is right in one of the narrowest parts of the pass and the walls rise up perpendicularly on either hand…" , William Henry Jackson, 1866 diary

, [Captions:] , A self-portrait of Jackson as a bullwhacker in 1866., One of the rare views of the trail looking east, this shows how narrow the route was around the bluff was.