California National Historic Trail

07/29/2024

175 years ago today, on July 25, 1849, at Parting of the Ways, west of South Pass, Forty-niner Elisha Perkins finds, stuck on forked sticks, 40 or 50 notes with news for emigrants behind him on the road.

"Parting of the Ways" written by WyoHistory.org shares the story of this important junction along the Oregon Trail.

"About 18 miles after travelers on the Oregon Trail crossed the Continental Divide at South Pass, they reached a junction known now as the Parting of the Ways. The right fork went west toward Fort Hall in present-day southern Idaho, while the left continued southwest toward Fort Bridger and Salt Lake City. The Fort Hall route was a cutoff, opened in 1844. It saved about 46 miles and two and a half days’ travel, but only by crossing a waterless, sagebrush desert.

Diarists sometimes referred to the roads at this junction as the California and Oregon trails. The northerly, straight-west route—the “Oregon” road across what’s now known as the Little Colorado Desert—was most often called Sublette’s Cutoff, although some called it Greenwood’s Cutoff. The decision to take one branch or the other was not irrevocable. The trails diverged again farther on, offering more than one way to Oregon or California." CONTINUE READING 👉 https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/parting-ways

📷 At True Parting of the Ways, the eye can follow the divergent trails for miles towards the horizon. Randy Brown photo.

07/25/2024

Stop by Scotts Bluff National Monument this coming Friday or Saturday to see the solar cars competing in the American Solar Challenge (ASC)! The American Solar Challenge is a competition to design, build, and drive solar-powered cars in a cross-country time/distance rally event. Teams compete over a 1,500-2,000 mile course between multiple cities across the country. The event has had over two decades of organized events in North America.

The route for this year's event begins in Nashville, Tennessee and concludes in Casper, Wyoming. Scotts Bluff is the last checkpoint before the final leg of the journey to Casper. We hope you'll come out to see the amazing technology in action and appreciate the hard work of the competitors.

Solar vehicles are set to arrive at the monument on Friday starting at 8:30 am. On Saturday, teams will charge their vehicles from 7 until 8:30 am. Then they will depart for the final leg of their journeys.

Image- A solar car passes Eagle Rock and a covered wagon during the 2022 American Solar Challenge. NPS Photo.

07/21/2024

"Hay," what’s that strange sight on the road?!

It’s a solar car!

The Electrek American Solar Car Challenge is an event encouraging college students to design, build, and drive solar-powered vehicles across the United States. While teams traveling the 1,500+ mile route in their innovative vehicles will encounter all kinds of unexpected challenges, they hope to find warm welcomes at checkpoints along the way.

On July 24, from 11:15 am to 3 pm, solar car teams will reach their checkpoint at Homestead NHP’s Heritage Center. Come cheer and show these teams some love as they arrive!

After cheering for these solar cars (and their drivers!), stick around for homesteading games and activities, and enjoy a historical car display that shows how homesteaders were transportation innovators, too!

Image: © American Solar Challenge

More info: https://go.nps.gov/AmericanSolarChallenge

07/21/2024

Looking Back: The Michigan team was the first to arrive at the first checkpoint on the ASC! Here they are heading out on an extra loop for extra points towards their total score. A few from their team earned their American Solar Challenge Junior Ranger badge!

(NPS Photo)

06/20/2024

06/16/2024

Get your saddles ready! The Pony Express Re-ride starts in 24 Hours!!
Tomorrow, Monday, June 17th, 3:00 pm, Patee House Museum, St. Joseph, Missouri: go.nps.gov/PateeHouse

Get your saddles ready! The Pony Express Re-ride starts in 24 Hours!!

Tomorrow, Monday, June 17th, 3:00 pm, Patee House Museum, St. Joseph, Missouri: go.nps.gov/PateeHouse

(NPS Photo)

Times are estimated because...horses on roads, horses on trails, horses, horses, horses! So please check the tracker to see where the rider is located to the minute: https://nationalponyexpress.org/re-ride/follow-the-ride/

Event See the Ride Schedule: go.nps.gov/ReRideSchedule

06/14/2024

Giddy up! The Pony Express Re-ride is about to start in THREE Days!

How can I see the Pony Express Re-ride in person? Read more...

Giddy up! The Pony Express Re-ride is about to start in THREE Days!

How can I see the Pony Express Re-ride in person?

As the riders make their way from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California, there are scheduled exchanges where the riders will hand off the mochila and a new rider will continue the delivery. The ride takes place 24 hours a day so some of these happen in the middle of the night!

Though the schedule is subject to change, here are the some of the places that you can watch an exchange or see the riders ride by (during daylight hours!): go.nps.gov/ReRideSchedule

(Note: the event takes place 24 hours a day and there are countless places to see the riders. These locations were selected based on the time of day and enrichment opportunities for the public. For a list of complete locations: nationalponyexpress.org)

Access the links on the map:
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/see-the-pony-express-re-ride.htm

03/24/2024

Have you been to this multi-trail heritage park? This Is the Place Heritage Park, Salt Lake City, Utah.

The park is located near the location where Brigham Young first surveyed the valley in July 1847, represents the Mormon arrival. Mormon tradition holds that when Brigham Young first gazed on the valley from this vicinity on July 24, 1847, he experienced a heavenly vision that led him to declare, “It is enough. This is the right place.” But as the City of the Saints grew from a rustic frontier village to a bustling territorial capital, many California-bound travelers paused here for a layover to rest, re-supply, or spend the winter — or, as in the case of English adventurer Sir Richard Burton, to satisfy their curiosity about Brigham Young and the Mormons. The Pony Express descended the canyon and went through town, too, carrying mail to a station on Main Street. Read more and plan a visit...

https://www.nps.gov/places/this-is-the-place-heritage-park.htm

(NPS Photo/This is the Place Heritage Park)

02/25/2024

Have you been to this trail site? Register Cliff State Historic Site, vicinity of Guernsey, Wyoming.

Following a day's journey from Fort Laramie, emigrants spent the night at Register Cliff, which rises one hundred feet above the North Platte River valley. The soft, chalky limestone rock made it easy for emigrants to inscribe their names into the cliff before continuing on their journey. The earliest signatures date to the late 1820s when trappers and fur traders passed through the area. Most of the names visible today were carved during the 1840s and 1850s, while people were emigrating west on the Oregon and California Trails. Learn more and plan a visit...

https://go.nps.gov/RegisterCliff

(NPS Photo)

02/06/2024

Travel the Trail Tuesday! Massacre Rocks State Park, American Falls, Idaho.

Massacre Rocks State Park received its name from a grouping of boulders that created a narrow break through which the Oregon and California Trails passed. Emigrants, fearing that American Indians might be waiting in ambush, named the boulders "Massacre Rocks." Skirmishes between emigrants and Shoshone Indians did occur in August 1862, but these took place east of the park. The state park still contains visible remnants of the Oregon and California Trails, including deep ruts that can be visited by following a paved path at the end of Park Lane, northeast of the visitor center. The visitor center itself has exhibits and interpretive panels about the wagon trails.

The park also offers 7.5 miles of hiking trails, some with interpretive waysides; biking; wildlife viewing; river access for boating and fishing; and a 42-site campground with hookups. Modest admission is charged. Plan your visit...

https://www.nps.gov/places/000/massacre-rocks-state-park.htm

02/03/2024

Could a 12-year-old girl fit inside a sugar barrel?

And why on earth would she want to?

Not much seems certain about Mary Elizabeth Snelling’s childhood circumstances except that she was African American and born in Johnson County, Mo., on February 4, 1839. Also this important fact: Mary Elizabeth, daughter of a Black woman and a white man, had light-colored skin.

Mary would have been 12 years old when she and her mother, Julia Snelling, accompanied William (or was it George?) Snelling’s family wagon train to California in 1851 – or 13 if they went in 1852, or only 10 if the family headed west in 1849, as some sources indicate. Mother Julia was, or at one point had been, held in enslavement by the Snellings, but a descendant of Mary attested that mother and daughter were free persons when they went west. If so, it seems they traveled willingly with the white family.

As an adult, Mary told her children and grandchildren that she rode to California in a sugar barrel tied to the sideboards of a covered wagon. Keep reading...

Girl in a Sugar Barrel: Mary Elizabeth Snelling on the California National Historic Trail

01/28/2024

"History is geography set into motion." —Johann Gottfried Herder, 18th century philosopher of history.

The Rocky Mountains stretch like a jagged spine between Alaska and Mexico, splitting North America into East and West. The Continental Divide is not a simple line of peaks, easily threaded by tracks and roads, but a complex of overlapping mountain ranges and treeless sagebrush steppe, hundreds of miles wide. In the days of covered wagon travel, the Rockies were an imposing barrier to the movement of people, commerce, and communications.

Early explorers probed the Northern Rockies looking for the fabled “Northwest Passage” that would open an easy route for transcontinental traffic. The men of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery finally put that myth to rest in 1805, when they nearly perished crossing Montana’s Bitterroot Range at Lemhi Pass. But the Absarokas (Crows), Shoshones, and other tribes knew of a much easier gateway through the mountains some 400 miles farther south, in today’s Wyoming. A small band of traders from the Pacific Fur Company discovered their secret in 1812. Read more...

Gateway to the West: National Historic Trails Across the Continental Divide