Western trails and railroads were the major gateways to the opening of the American "Wild West," but the incentives to travel there from northern, eastern, and southern states varied, although most were associated in one way or another to the search for opportunity and the hope of acquiring sudden wealth.
WESTERN TRAILS connected eastern cities with western metropolises. In the process, some connected to or branched off from
others, the branches dipping south or heading north. These trails were one of the chief means by which the American West was settled. Famous names associated with the fur trade include William Sublette, Lit Carson, Jim Bridger,
and John C. Fremont.
Oregon Trail
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The Oregon Trail started west from Independence, Missouri, heading northwest through the vast Unorganized Territory, past Chimney Rock in present-day Nebraska, and along the
south side of the Platte River; through the South Pass of the Rocky Mountains in the southeastern part of present-day Montana, following the along the south side of the Snake River and continuing along the south side of the
Columbia River and through the Cascade Mountain Range, to Portland, Oregon Territory (present-day Idaho , Oregon, Washington, and parts of Montana and Wyoming . This 2,170-mile-long trail was used from 1811 to 1840 by fur trappers and, later, wagon trains.
Near Fort Hall in eastern Oregon County (which was founded on February 14, 1845, and included present-day Idaho, the 1,600-mile-long California Trail led west, along the Mormon Trail (see below) and Oregon Trail (see above), southwest through the Utah Territory (which existed from 1850 to 1896 and included
present-day Utah and Nevada, intermittently along the south side of the Humboldt River, into California and on to the west, to Sacramento, and was used by emigrants after it had been established by fur traders and mountain men during the years 1811 to 1840.
The 1,300-mile-long Mormon Trail, traveled by Mormons during the years 1846-1869, led west from Nauvoo, Illinois, through Council Bluffs, Iowa; into the vast Unorganized Territory
(which included present-day Nebraska, past Chimney Rock and along the Platte River; through the South Pass, into the southeastern corner of the Oregon Territory to Salt Lake City in the Utah Territory.
Wagon Train
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Beginning at Independence, Missouri, the 900-mile-long Santa Fe Trail led southwest, along the north side of the Arkansas River, through the southern portion of the Unorganized Territory, before dipping south, and then turning west, in the New Mexico Territory, to Santa Fe, which
lay just east of the Rio Grande River. On its way through the New Mexico Territory, the Trail passed Comancheria, the Comanches’ territory, in which the Comanches demanded compensation for their permission of travelers’
passage. The trail was opened by its first users, the region’s indigenous people. During the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), the U. S. Army used the Trail to invade Mexico. Although the Santa Fe Trail had its origins
in 1739, after France ordered the establishment of a trade route to Spain’s colony, Santa Fe, in present-day New Mexico, it wasn’t actually established until French traders Pierre Antoine and Paul Mallet succeeded in making a round trip from Kaskasia, Illinois, to Santa Fe in 1739-1740. From the 1820s to the 1830s, the Santa Fe Trail was used by fur trappers and mountain men. After it became a U. S. possession in 1848, it underwent improvements and became popular with
westbound emigrants, wagon trains, and trade wagons. Some distance west of Fort Dodge, in Kansas, the Trail forked, the original route continuing northwest, past Bent’s Fort, before turning south, through Raton Pass
on the eastern side of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains (between present-day Trinidad , Colorado, and present-day Raton, New Mexico, to rejoin the main route
north of Las Vegas, New Mexico. This southern alternative, developed in 1640 by Spanish traders, closed in 1650, to be opened again in 1821, when Mexico gained independence from Spanish rule,
was known as the Cimarron Cut-off. Although this “cut-off” cut off as much as 100 miles from the trip west, it also crossed land that provided
limited access to water, as compared to the access that the main route offered.
Rio Grande River
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Spanish explorers used the 700-mile-long Old Spanish Trail as early as the 16th century, but it was used most heavily as a trade route by pack trains from 1830 to the mid 1850s, and served as both a Mexican
trail, from 1821 to 1848 and, after the Mexican-American War, as an American trail, from 1848- the mid 1850s. The Trail headed west out of Santa Fe in the New Mexico Territory, north along the eastern shore of the Rio Grande River, before cutting across this river,
and arching northwest, through the Utah Territory, crossing the Colorado River, and southwest, through the southwestern corner of the Territory, into California, to Los Angeles.
The Great Western Cattle Trail, in use from 1874 to 1897, was blazed by Captain John T. Lytle, when he drove his 3,500-head herd of cattle from his Medina County, Texas, ranch to the Red Cloud Indian Agency, in western Nebraska, which was, at the time, inhabited by
Oglala Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes. The Trail led north, through Texas, from the Nueces River, through Concho County, past Fort Griffin and Doan’s Store; and past Dodge City, Kansas; to Ogallala, Nebraska.
Later, the Trail would form a junction with the Goodnight-Loving Trail to the west and intersect with the Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, running west from St. Louis, Missouri , to Pueblo, Colorado; with the Kansas
Pacific Railroad, running west from St. Louis, Missouri, through Abilene, Kansas, and Ellsworth, Kansas, to Denver, Colorado, and the Union Pacific Railroad, running west from Omaha, Nebraska, to the Pacific Coast, and the
Chicago and Midwestern Railroad, running east, from Omaha, Nebraska, to Chicago, Illinois. Several famous cowtowns and names associated with these trails include Abilene, Kansas (where Wild Bill Hickok enforced the law); Dodge
City. Kansas (home to such lawmen as Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson, as well as such other notables as gunfighter and gambler Doc Holliday, and actor-comedian Eddie Foy, Jr.; Ellsworth, Kansas, where Wild Bill Hickok, gunmen
Ben Thompson and his brother Billy Thompson, and, possibly, Wyatt Earp.
Transcontinental Railroad's Completion
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RAILROADS
The Transcontinental Railroad, built, between 1863 and 1869, in two sections, the west-to-east Central Pacific Railroad running from Sacramento, California, to unincorporated Promontory Point, Utah, joined the east-to-west-running Union Pacific Railroad, which started in Omaha, Nebraska, thereby also joining the western United States to the rest of the country, thus becoming another gateway to the opening
of the American West. The Transcontinental Railroad covered 1,776 miles and cost about $60 million ($1.3 billion in today’s money), partly due to corruption and graft. From one end of the new railroad to the other, a distance of 3,000 miles, which had, before the railroad, took up to three months now took less than a week and cost $150 instead of $1,000.
BEFORE THE TRAILS
Before the American West could be reached by the trails built for trade, trapping, emigration, Mormons’ travel, and wagon trains’ passage, U. S. Army Captain Meriwether Lewis
(1774-1809) and Second Lieutenant William Clark (1770-1838), commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), undertook an expedition of discovery, accompanied by 30 to 45 others, that was designed to find a travel
route across the continent’s western half as the party explored a northern portion of the land acquired from France in the Louisiana Purchase (April 30, 1803).
Fur traders organized expeditions into the lands of the frontier West, establish trading posts in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota,
Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. However, fur traders’ trails didn’t become the basis for developing the trails west that emigrants, wagon trains, and other frontier travelers and settlers used because, although they served the needs of traders, such as access to
animal habitats and convenient streams and rivers, their trails support travel by wagon or train; many were not given to development or adaptable to large-scale transport or travel; were not directed at towns, cities, ports,
or natural resources; and did not lend themselves to cattle drives or mining. Nevertheless, they showed that travel through inhospitable and rugged terrain was possible.
William and Clark proceeded from Camp Wood, Missouri, traveling northwest, by keelboats and pirogues, along the Missouri
River. After wintering at Fort Mandan, near present-day Washburn, North Dakota, they resumed their journey with Sacagawea (c. 1788-1812), the Shosone wife of French-Canadian fur trapper Tousissant Carbonneau, continuing to
follow the Missouri River to the Bitteroots Range of the Rocky Mountains, which they crossed at Lolo Pass, on the border of present-day Montana and Idaho, afterward, in canoes, traveling upon the Clearwater River, the Snake River, and the Columbia River, through the Pacific Northwest, past present-day Portland and Mount Hood,
on to the Pacific Ocean.
Although their expedition failed to discover a continuous waterway to their destination, Lewis and Clark did locate a Native American trail that connected the two major rivers they had traveled,
the Missouri and the Columbia. They also learned much about the flora and fauna of the Pacific Northwest and made the acquaintance of such Native American tribes as the Sioux, Blackfeet, Shoshone, and Nez Perce.
Erie Canal Route
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Erie Canal
In 1840, the 363-mile Erie Canal originated in Albany, New York, at the Hudson River. Generally following the Mohawk River, the Canal passed through or near Schenectady; Rotterdam; Amsterdam;
Little Falls, where it crossed the Mohawk River; Utica; Rome; and Auburn, ending at Buffalo, where it connected to Lake Erie.
Thus, by traveling upon the canal to Buffalo and, then, west through the interconnecting Great Lakes, travelers could, theoretically, have traveled as far west as Minnesota. They didn’t,
though, because traveling by these waterways would be as inconvenient and rugged as traveling over the overland trails. Boats were slow, carrying freight, not passengers, and travel by canal and lakes was limited, if not impossible,
during winter months, when water froze. Conflicts with Native American tribes could be dangerous or deadly. Ports could not accommodate large numbers of passengers, especially if these points were not in large cities, and
overland trails were familiar, established, provided supply stations, were liable, could accommodate large groups traveling with wagons and livestock, and could be navigated year long. Often, army forts protected portions
of trails in territories inhabited by hostile Native American tribes. Railroads were also faster, cheaper, and safer than both waterways and overland trails.
Pony Express Route
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Pony Express Trail
The 1,800-mile-long Pony Express Trail ran from St. Joseph, Missouri, through Kearney and Scottsbluff, Nebraska; Casper, Wyoming; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Carson City, Nevada to Sacramento,
California, and was used from 1860-1861. It was not used by pioneers traveling west for the same reasons they avoided the trails used by fur traders and the Erie Canal used by trading vessels. Neither of the later, the fur
traders’s trails or the Erie Canal, provided the campsites, supply stations, forts, or grasslands and number of natural water resources and locations that pioneers needed, and the Pony Express operated only for a total
of about 18 months; the overland trails were in continuous use for years. They also connected with or provided access to many choices of locations in which to settle.
INCENTIVES
Western trails and railroads provided the means of traveling the west, but the fur trade, cattle drives, gold and silver mining, and the need for
law and order, commerce, and culture, as well as pleasure, provided the incentives for many, including traders, cattlemen, blacksmiths, miners, lawmen, prostitutes, teachers, preachers, and others to uproot themselves and
their families, risk it all (including, at times, their very lives) to start over in the promising land of the frontier of the Wild West.
The Fur Trade began in North America in the French Canada provinces and the northeastern American colonies shortly before
the colonies became the northeastern United States, traders from France, England, and the Dutch republic erecting trading posts and forts and trading with indigenous groups, with beavers and otters being hunted for their skins.
The trade sometimes led to conflict between the Europeans and indigenous tribes, as during the Beaver Wars (1640s-1650s) and the French and Indian War (1754-1763), and the animals sought for their fur varied from beavers and
otters to deer and, later, buffalo.
Operating in the Pacific Northwest, the Hudson’s Bay Company constructed the York Factory Express trade route, which was used from the 1820s to the 1840s, and ran from Fort Vancouver (in present-day Vancouver, Washington), through or past Fort Nez Perces
(in present-day Wallula, Washington), Fort Colville (near present-day Colville, Washington), Fort Assiniboine (24 miles northwest of Barrhead, in central Alberta, Canada), Edmonton (the capital of the Canadian province of
Alberta), and Norway House (in the province of Manitoba, Canada), to York Factory (in the southwestern shore of the Hayes River, some 120 miles southeast of Churchill in Manitoba, Canada). This trade route connected the Pacific
Northwest fur trade with points as far as the Hawaiian Islands, Russian Alaska, and California, which was yet under Mexican control. The York Factory Express trade route was not used by American citizens who emigrated to the
Western states because of its far-north location; the rugged terrain through which it passed; its lack of connection to the eastern states; its being under the political control of Great Britain; and the availability of existing
trails that better served the needs of emigrants, including the Overland Trail, and, later, the transcontinental railroad.
Men and a woman panning for gold during the California Gold Rush
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Gold Mining was another important incentive for Western migration. The California Gold Rush (1848-1855), brought not only Easterners, but also emigrants from around the world, west to seek their fortunes. Although one of the richest of gold discoveries
occurred in the 1870s near Carlin, Nevada, in Eureka County, it wasn’t until the Newmont Mining Corporation discovered a large, but low-grade, gold deposit ther in 1961, it wasn’t until the 1970s, when additional
deposits were discovered, that gold fever struck, well after the final days of the Wild West. As might be expected, gold mining camps and towns also attracted famous gunfighters.
Since then, gold is being mined at the Nevada sites Turquoise; Midas; Jerritt Canyon; Twin Creeks; Starvation Canyon; Hollister; Hycroft; Lone Tree; South Arturo; Storm; Betz-Post; Long
Canyon; Florida Canyon; Phoenix; Marigold; Enigrant Creek; Fire Creek; Rochester; Pipeline; Cortez Mills; Bald Mountain; Gold Bar; Ruby Hill, Eureka; Pan; Robinson; Comstock Lode; Denton-Rawhide; Round Mountain; Borealis;
Aurora; Mineral Ridge; Goldfield; and Sterling. Most of these mines, though, opened after 1900.
Wyatt Earp (left) and Wild Bill Hickok (right)
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The Black Hills Gold Rush is responsible, in large part, for the influx of people into Deadwood, South Dakota, now a National
Historic Landmark District. During the Wild West, Deadwood was home, at least temporarily, to Wyatt Earp (1848-1929), Seth Bullock (1849-1919), Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876), Calamity Jane (1856-1903), Eleanor Dumont (“Madame
Mustache”) (1829-1979), Madame Dura DuFran (1868-1934), Madame Mollie Johnson, and several other notables. Hickok was killed here, by Jack McCall (1852 or 1853-1877), who shot him in the back of the head while his victim
held aces in eights, cards that became known as “the dead man’s hand.”
Virgil, having relocated to Goldfield, Nevada, from California, served as a deputy sheriff for Esmerelda County, Nevada, the location of several gold deposits, where he planned to open a saloon with Wyatt, who also lived there at the time.
Likewise, Bodie, California, owed its one-time prominence to the discovery of gold. Named for prospector W. S. Bodey, the
town “boomed” after gold was discovered nearby, and silver was found in nearby Aurora, Nevada. The well-known prostitute Madame Mustache (Eleanor Dumont) reportedly plied her trade in Bodie, as she had in Deadwood,
South Dakota; Fort Benton, Montana; Pioche, Nevada; Tombstone, Arizona; and San Francisco, California. She also once owned a gambling parlor in Nevada City, California, where dealt cards while flirting with the house’s
gamblers. She died outside Bodie, of a morphine overdose, an apparent suicide after she lost much of her money in a bet. Another famous visitor to Bodie is my own fictional lawman, U.S. Marshal Bane Messenger, who tracks escaped
prisoners there in the fifth novel, Manhunt: Return to Justice in my Western series, An Adventure of the Old West, which is introduced by the prequel novella Bane Messenger, Bounty Hunter.
Silver Mining on the Western frontier is often associated with the Comstock Lode (Virginia City, Utah Territory [later, Nevada]), the Homestake Mine (Lead, South Dakota), and the Anaconda (Butte, Montana), the last of which became a copper mine in 1881. The mining operations at these and other such locations enriched such men as John William Mackay, George Hurst, Marcus Daly, William Chapman Raiston,
William Sharon, William M. Stewart, Alvinza Hawyard (Comstock Lode); and Daly (again) (Anaconda), but at least one of them, the Comstock Lode, also attracted the Western legends Henry “Hank” Starr and Pat Garret,
as well as the writers William Wright (“Dan DeQuille”) and Samuel Langhorne Clemens (“Mark Twain”), both of whom wrote for the Territorial Enterprise. Another town associated with silver mining, Tombstone, Arizona, became famous for the gunfight at the O. K. Corral featuring Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, Morgan Earp, and Doc Holliday against Billy Clanton, Tom McLaury, Frank
McLaury, and Billy Clairborne. Wild Bill Hickok met his death at the hand (or gun) of Jack McCall and was mourned by Martha Jane Canary (“Calamity Jane”) in a saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory.
Cattle Drives, of course, were also incentives that helped to open and settle the West. As noted, several cross-country
overland trails were established for the purpose of driving herds of cattle to railroads for transport to markets or to the markets themselves, directly. The Goodnight-Loving Trail, in use during the 1860s, which ran from Fort Concho, Texas, west through Horseshoe Crossing, and north, through or past Fort Sumner, New Mexico Territory,
Pueblo, Colorado Territory, and Denver, Territory of Colorado, to Cheyenne, Wyoming Territory. The Shawnee Trail, in use from 1866-1867, proceeded north from the Nueces River and Indianola, Texas, through or past Fort Worth, Texas, and Denison, Texas, before crossing the Red River, and continuing northeast to Fort Smith,
Indian Territory [later, Oklahoma Territory, and then the state of Oklahoma]), to the Missouri Pacific Railroad’s Sedalia, Missouri, station. A northeast branch, roughly parallel to the main trail, separated at Denison,
ending at Baxter Springs, Kansas. (See the earlier section of this article for information regarding other notable overland trails.)
Tombstone, Arizona, 1881
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Boomtowns were numerous in the days of the nineteenth-century west, some of the better-known of which were Bodie, California (gold); Butte, Montana Territory (copper); Central City, Territory
of Colorado (gold); Cripple Creek, Colorado (gold); Deadwood, South Dakota (gold); Denver, Colorado Territory (gold); El Paso, Texas (railroad); Ellsworth, Kansas (cattle, railroad); Fairbanks, Territory of Alaska (gold);
Goldfield, Nevada (gold); Leadville, Colorado (silver); Nome, Alaska (gold); Sacramento, California (gold); Tombstone, Arizona Territory (silver); and Virginia City, Nevada Territory (silver). Several frontier figures, including
Wyatt Earp, Virgil Earp, Doc Holliday, Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, Luke Short, William “Bill” Tilgham, and others, traveled from boomtown to boomtown, seeking opportunity and riches.
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