WSHS
HOME PAGE
Wyoming
Western Trails Project
HOME PAGE
Perspectives of
Wyoming Trails
Annals of Wyoming
Wyoming History
Paintings
by Dave Paulley
Oregon Trail
Landscape Paintings
by Ryan Bench
Trail Maps
by Loren C. Bishop
Western Trails Project
Perspectives of Wyoming Trails
You can click on the title below to view the original document in Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) in a new window.
 |
Wyoming's Trails: Thoroughfares to Modern Wyoming  By David Kathka Following trails used by game, then Native Americans, then explorers and mountain men, and missionaries, the pioneers began the trek of Euro-Americans westward to the Rocky Mountains and Pacific Coast in the early 1840s. By the beginning of the Civil War, somewhere between a quarter and a half million people had left Independence or St. Joseph, Missouri, or other jumping off points such as Council Bluffs, to journey West. Some went seeking land, some religious freedom, and some wealth from minerals or other natural resources; while others went seeking to make a fortune selling services or goods to the farmers, miners, or religious freedom seekers. Nearly all would spend time traversing portions of the Louisiana Purchase/Mexican territory/Oregon Territory that would not be named Wyoming for decades after they had been there. They wrote in their journals about the Oregon-California-Utah Trail landmarks they encountered as they moved alongside the North Platte River, passed Laramie Peak, joined the Sweetwater River at Independence Rock, and then crossed the continental divide at gently sloping South Pass, one of the most important events of the entire trip. If following the Cherokee/Overland Trail they crossed the Laramie Plains, moved west past Elk Mountain, and crossed the continental divide via Bridger's Pass and then on to the Green River. Most of the people traveling the trails in what would become Wyoming did not stay. They found the country arid and bleak and it did not measure up to the vision they had of an Eden-like Oregon country, or of a gold covered California, or a religious Zion. So many felt this way that Western historian Frederick Paxon, and later Wyoming historian T.A. Larson, declared Wyoming but a thoroughfare and suggested that the trails era really did not have much of an impact on its development or history. But as we have learned more about the trails experience, we find that much of our history is in fact tied to that period. While most of the people on the trail did move on, hundreds of thousands in fact, many people sensed the opportunity to put down roots of a sort and began to offer services and goods to the wayfarers. Jim Bridger and Louis Vasquez created a trading post on the Blacks Fork of the Green River to provide blacksmith services and trade goods to trail travelers. They would serve both the Overland and the Oregon California and Utah argonaughts. The former fur trading outpost of Ft. William became Ft. John and then Ft. Laramie and provided many an overlander the opportunity for rest and a good fleecing with prices marked up at times as much as eighteen hundred percent according to Francis Parkman. By the end of the 1840s, the Way West through Wyoming was characterized by crowds of people moving West and entrepreneurs of all stripes jockeying to make money by providing ferry services, guides, service stations for wagons, draft animals, provisions, liquor, laundries, and even tourist attractions such as caged bears at Independence Rock. Clearly, the trails experience in Wyoming was not a lonely experience and where there are crowds of people needing things others move in to provide those things. The impact of thousands and thousands of travelers on the landscape of Wyoming created marks on the land that can be easily seen in the 21st century. Ruts and swales, ruins and remains tell today's Wyoming resident of the many who passed by. But the impact of the travelers is also seen on the people of Wyoming; the Native Americans who often times assisted the travelers but who were in the end forced from their lands to avoid conflicts with those moving in or because of competition for food. The Shoshone and Arapaho and Cheyenne and Lakota and Crow were placed on reservations that still exist today. Michael Cassity argues in one of the series of centennial memories he wrote for the Wyoming Centennial "that the businesses that grew along the road created the same complex of support we find today along our modern highways." The game trail that became the Indian trail that became the mountain man road, which became the pioneer trails, which became the Lincoln Highway and U.S. Highway 30 and Interstate Highway 80. We can see a stratigraphy of roads just as we see stratigraphy in our geology. "By the time the Oregon Trail was replaced with the Overland Stage Trail across the southern portion of the state and by the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869," argues Cassity "the area through which it passed had been completely transformed. No longer was it the legacy of the mountain men that proved dominant. It was a legacy of boom and bust business, and of increasingly hostile relations between natives and newcomers. It was a legacy with powerful but sometimes subtle consequences. Among the chief of those consequences was the creation of a society that we could even call modern Wyoming." The Wyoming State Historical Society, recognizing the importance of western trails to the state's history has for over half a century, supported trail research, trail preservation, and trail interpretation. Each June, the Wyoming State Historical Society has sponsored visits by the membership to important Wyoming historical sites. Many WSHS treks have followed the paths of pioneers as a hundred or more Wyoming historians retrace (first with auto tours and later buses) the steps of those going West and visit the remnants of both the trails and the business and government support systems. Many of these treks are documented in the Society's quarterly journal. Local chapters also find more localized trail tours to be popular with their membership. In the 1950s the WSHS joined with the Bureau of Land Management to place concrete posts with trail medallions imbedded in them along the Oregon Trail on public land. Unfortunately these became popular with vandals and today none of the originals remain in place. One of the WSHS's founding members, L.C. Bishop, actively mapped many of the state's various trails. His maps are in the care of the Wyoming State Archives, and copies may be obtained from them. The Wyoming State Historical Society website, www.wyshs.org , provides on-line access to the maps (http://www.wyshs.org/maps.htm ) and ordering information for copies from Wyoming State Archives. The Wyoming State Historical Society created the L.C. Bishop award to recognize "an organization or individual who has voluntarily contributed in a significant manner to preserving or recording the history of any part of a historical trail in Wyoming through preservation of a site, completed written research, cartography, or other means." The Wyoming State Historical Society encouraged study of the trails by supporting the publication of research about the trails. For example, the Society supported the publication of Harrison Cobb's Parkman's Trace and Robert Munkre's Saleratus and Sagebrush: The Oregon Trail Through Wyoming. The Wyoming State Historical Society's journal, Annals of Wyoming is a treasure trove of information about the trails through Wyoming and the impact they have had on the State. While most of the articles are about the Oregon Trail there are also articles about the Bozeman Trail, the Bridger Trail, the Overland/Cherokee Trail, the Cheyenne Black Hills Trail, the Lodge Pole Trail, as well as trappers' trails, and freight roads. In the 1980s, Wyoming artist Dave Paulley worked with preeminent Wyoming historian T.A. Larson, under the sponsorship of the Society, to create a series of paintings focusing on important historical events and places. Many of these paintings depict scenes related to trails history. The series includes, for example, a scene of Independence Rock on the 4th of July in 1847, a depiction of horse drawn freight wagons, a painting of Bridger's Ferry, and a picture of the Overland Trail- Green River Crossing. This brief essay provides little detail about Wyoming's trails history. The materials available through this project provide a wealth of detail and are easily accessible thanks to the digitization project. On behalf of the Wyoming State Historical Society, we hope this project leads to a broadening and deepening of the knowledge about America's Western Trails. |
Please contact us with your comments, suggestions or inquiries.
NewERAnet.com
HTML ©Copyright 2000-2004 Wyoming State Historical Society