Prior to 1859, overland travelers leaving Salt Lake City for California had but two alternatives. They could go north into Idaho, then turn southwest and follow the Humboldt River into northern California, or they could head south, following segments of the Old Spanish Trail, and enter southern California. Both routes were long and tortuous. In the summer of 1859, Captain James Simpson blazed a more direct trail by leading an expedition across the desert. Simpson s is the route the Pony Express and the Overland Stage adopted. But emigrants in covered wagons also traveled the Central Overland...
Prior to 1859, overland travelers leaving Salt Lake City for California had but two alternatives. They could go north into Idaho, then turn southwest ...
Between 1841 and 1866, more than 500,000 people followed trails to Oregon, California, and the Salt Lake Valley in one of the greatest mass migrations in American history. This collection of travelers' accounts of their journeys in the 1840s, the first volume in a new series of trail narratives, comprises excerpts from pioneer and missionary letters, diaries, journals, and memoirs--many previously unpublished--accompanied by biographical information and historical background.
Beginning with Father Pierre-Jean de Smet's letters relating his encounters with Plains Indians, and...
Between 1841 and 1866, more than 500,000 people followed trails to Oregon, California, and the Salt Lake Valley in one of the greatest mass migr...
During the early weeks of 1848, as U.S. congressmen debated the territorial status of California, a Swiss immigrant and an itinerant millwright forever altered the future state's fate. Building a sawmill for Johann August Sutter, James Wilson Marshall struck gold. The rest may be history, but much of the story of what happened in the following year is told not in history books but in the letters, diaries, journals, and other written recollections of those whom the California gold rush drew west. In this second installment in the projected four-part collection The Great Medicine...
During the early weeks of 1848, as U.S. congressmen debated the territorial status of California, a Swiss immigrant and an itinerant millwright...
One of the first Anglo-Americans to record their travels to New Mexico, Dr. Rowland Willard (1794 1884) journeyed west on the Santa Fe Trail in 1825 and then down the Camino Real into Mexico, taking notes along the way. This edition of the young physician s travel diaries and subsequent autobiography, annotated by New Mexico Deputy State Librarian Joy L. Poole, is a rich historical source on the two trails and the practice of medicine in the 1820s. Few Americans knew much about New Mexico when Willard set out on his journey from St. Charles, Missouri, where he had recently completed a...
One of the first Anglo-Americans to record their travels to New Mexico, Dr. Rowland Willard (1794 1884) journeyed west on the Santa Fe Trail in 1825 a...
