South Pass Oregon Mormon Trail Lander Cutoff Landmarkers Facts Maps Pictures>

Click on Thumbnail to enlarge

Article Link Bars Comments, Questions, or Suggestions

South Pass Oregon Mormon Trails Fur Trade Monuments Landmarks
by
O. Ned Eddins

Oregon Trail Mormon Trail Astorians Robert Stuart Fur Trappers

Fur Trade Facts Mountain Man Oregon Country Hole-in-the-Rock

The pictures below are Landmarks, Monuments, and Markers associated with the Fur Trade, and the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails over South Pass. A detailed description of the discovery of South Pass, and what would become the Oregon Trail, including a map, is covered in the Astorian article. The importance of South Pass to the geographical outline of the United States is discussed in the Oregon Country article.

Click on the thumbnail picture to in large it.

Two of the most important items along the Oregon and Mormon trails are seldom mentioned. These were ox shoes and buffalo chips.

Worn Ox Shoe Pair Ox Shoes

Oxen were shod several time on the overland journey. It took four pairs of shoes to do the front and back feet.

Buffalo Chip

Buffalo chips were as important as any landmark on the Oregon and Mormon pioneer trails. Dried buffalo manure was the only "firewood" for cooking and heat that could be found on the prairie. One of the first tasks when the Oregon and Mormon Trail wagon trains stopped at night was to gather armfuls, or aprons full, of dried buffalo chips. Called "meadow muffins", it took two or three bushels of chips to heat a meal. Makes you wonder if B.S. comes from the "tall tales" told around campfires of buffalo chips.

The Prairie schooner was widely used on the overland trails. The Conestoga wagon was big, heavy, and hard too pull for the two thousand miles to the Oregon Country.

Chimney Rock

Chimney Rock rises four hundred and seventy feet above the North Platte River in western Nebraska. The tip of the formation is three hundred and twenty-five feet above the base. To fur traders, mountain men, and the Oregon and Mormon Trail immigrants, Chimney rock marked the end of plains travel and the beginning of the mountains on the overland trails.

Beyond Chimney Rock, the next Oregon-Mormon Trail landmark was Scott's Bluff. The first traders to see it was Robert Stuart and the Astorians in 1812. The bluff was named for Hiram Scott whose body was found near the bluff in 1830. The Oregon Trail picture is taken from the summit of Scott's Bluff.

Scott's Bluff Oregon Trail

Headed west, the next major stop on the Oregon and Mormon Trail was Fort Laramie (Fort William Fort John).

Fort Laramie Settlers Store

The above pictures are of the restored Fort Laramie. Near the mouth of Laramie Creek and the North Plate River, the original fort was built by William Sublette in 1834. On June 26, 1849, Lieutenant Daniel P. Woodbury purchased the trading post from the American Fur Company for four thousand dollars, and named it Fort Laramie. The fort served as a repair and supply point for the Oregon and Mormon Trail, as well as, a major army post during the Plains Indian wars. Merril Mattes of the National Park Service has written an excellent account of Fort Laramie( Mattes).

Independence Rock P. G. Sessions

Independence Rock is on the eastside of South Pass. Located on the Sweetwater River, emigrants of the Oregon, Mormon, California trails stopped there before going over South Pass. William Sublette and his supply train party for the 1830 Rendezvous celebrated Independence Day there on July 4th, 1830. Independence Rock supposedly received its name at that time. Oregon Pioneers considered Independence Rock as being halfway to Oregon. If Independence Rock was reached by July 4th, chances were good that the emigrants could reach the Oregon Country before snow fall. My great-great grandfather Perrigrine G. Sessions, the first settler of Bountiful, Utah, carved his name on the southeast corner of Independence rock in August of 1847. Father DeSmet referred to Independence Rock as the "The Great Register of the Desert."

Devil's Gate Martin's Cove

Devil's Gate is a narrow cut made by the Sweetwater River through a rock formation. Devil's Gate is three hundred seventy feet high and more than a quarter mile long. length. Martin's Cove is about four miles west of Devil's Gate.

The Oregon and Mormon trail across South Pass is marked with monument. These monuments have Oregon Trail, Mormon Trail, and California Trail on the sides. With so many roads in the South Pass area, it is always nice to find a marker and know that you are on the old trail.

Oregon Trail Marker Mormon Trail Marker

South Pass is 7546 feet above sea level at its highest point. At the south end of the Wind River Mountains, the broad open sagebrush-covered pass is about twenty miles wide in this area.

South Pass East South Pass West

The above pictures were taken from the Oregon-Mormon trail where it crosses the Continental Divide.

Oregon Trail Marker Whitman-Spaulding Marker

These markers are located not far from where the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails cross the Continental Divide. On the south end of the Wind River Range in Wyoming, South Pass is a wide open sagebrush covered area. In 1836, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spaulding were the first white women to cross South Pass.

South Pass Wagon Tracks Old Hay Ranch

The Oregon and Mormon trails in many places were several miles wide, but when the emigrant wagons used the same part of the trail, the heavy loaded wagons of the Oregon Pioneers, the Mormon emigrants, and the California Gold Miners often left wagon ruts six-feet or better deep. The above tracks are about five-feet deep. These tracks and the old hay ranch are a little over two miles from the Continental Divide near Pacific Springs.. Used in the early 1900s, the hay ranch picture shows what a broad area South Pass covers.

Pacific Creek

Pacific Spring was the first dependable water on the Pacific side of the Continental Divide. Located in this area was Gilbert's Station, a Pony Express Station, Halter and Flick hay ranch, and the turn off for the Lander Cutoff. Some sources indicate the Pony Express Station was burned down by Indians in 1862. The exact location of the station is unknown.

Lander Cut-Off

The Lander Cut Off of the Oregon Trail was constructed in 1858. It was the only federally funded part of the Oregon Trail. After leaving the original Oregon trail at Pacific Spring, the Lander Cut-off passed over the Wyoming Range, Salt River Range, and the Caribou Range in Idaho to rejoined the Oregon California trail near Fort Hall, Idaho. This new trail saved considerable distance, but was much harder travel than the more open country to Fort Bridger and on to Soda Springs.

From 1840 to 1860, the total number of people that traveled the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails is estimated to be between 315,000 and 320,000. The entire population of the United States during this period went from just over 17 million in 1840 to about 31 million in 1860.

The grave under the big pine tree is Elizabeth Paul. She died July 27th, 1862 during child birth. One estimate has one of every seventeen travelers on the Oregon Trail dying in route to the Oregon Country. This is about one grave for every quarter mile traveled on the trail.

The Father DeSmet monument sets on a bluff over looking the Horse Creek rendezvous sites. Near here, Father DeSmet held the first Catholic Mass in Wyoming.

Located in the Teton Wilderness area, Two Ocean Pass separates the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean drainage. North Two Oceans Creek runs down the Continental Divide a short distance then splits into two branches. Depending on the time of year, each branch is three- to six-feet wide. Atlantic Creek flows 3,348 miles to the Gulf of Mexico via. the Yellowstone, Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers. Pacific Creek flows 1,353 miles to the Pacific Ocean via. the Snake and Columbia Rivers.

Two Ocean Pass Parting of the Waters
(Elevation 8,160 feet)

People scoffed at Jim Bridger when he said a fish could swim from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Two Ocean Pass was the place.

The circles in the ground are what is left of the Hidatsa Village where Sakakawea lived as a Hidatsa slave. The village was on the Knife River a short distance from where the river emptied into the Missouri River. The lodges were forty- to fifty-feet across with a log framework that supported the dirt roof. In this area, there were three Hidatsa Villages and two Mandan Villages. The Mandan and Hidatsa used similar lodges. Five miles down the Missouri River was Fort Mandan; the winter quarters that Lewis and Clark built in 1804-1805.

Sakakawea's Village Arikara Lodge

The Arikara lodge is a replica of one at Fort Lincoln, Mandan, North Dakota. These permanent villages on the Missouri River were the centers of trade between the Plains Indians and fur traders from the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company of Canada.

The Historical Landmark article was written by O. Ned Eddins of Afton, Wyoming. Permission is given for material from this site to be used for school research papers.

Article References and Article Citation are at bottom of article.

Do you need an easy personalized gift? My first historical novel Mountains of Stone will be signed with your message, and along with a picture CD, mailed directly to anyone you designate. Click on book cover for details.

Mountains of Stone contains an abridged account of the important aspects of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, as well as, some of the major Hudson's Bay and North West Company explorers. The extensive bibliography for Mountains of Stone served as background information on the articles for this website.

There have been many requests for copies of pictures from the website, and I have put the best pictures, and others from Jackson Hole, Yellowstone, Mesa Verde, Monument Valley, and Star Valley, Wyoming, on a CD. The pictures make beautiful screensavers, or can be used as a slide show in Windows XP. When ordering Mountains of Stone, request the CD and I will send it free with the book.

Mountains of Stone Picture CD

Winds of Change, sequel to Mountains of Stone, will be published this summer. All of the people that purchased Mountains of Stone (except the dead beats) will be notified by email when Winds of Change is available. For those that ordered Mountains of Stone, the price for Winds of Change will be the same. For those on the Mountains of Stone list, it will not hurt to fill out the Winds of Change order form in case there is an email foul up. To view chapter headings click on Winds of Change.

Winds of Change is concerned with the early effects of westward expansion on the Northwest and Plains Indians. The time frame for Winds of Change is 1810 to 1813. My plan was for Winds of Change to go through the rendezvous system, but there was just too much interesting history associated with Tecumseh and the Northwest Indian Wars, Mountain Man-Indian Fur Trade, Factory Trading System, Astorians, and Western Expansion across the Mississippi River.

Chapter Headings

The Piegan
Fort Raymond
War Rumbles
Osage Post
Tecumseh
General William Clark
St. Louis
The Spanish
Comanche
Cheyenne
Winds of Change
Indian Horse
Astorians
South Pass
Bibliography
Addendum

An addendum was added to Winds of Change that covers a collection of short historical facts related to the Rocky Mountain and Canadian fur trade and the Oregon and Mormon migrations. At the close of the Rocky Mountain Man Rendezvous in 1840, the first settler family traveled the Oregon Trail--western expansion had begin. Within the next ten to fifteen years, over five hundred thousand people migrated to Oregon, Utah, and California.

The back cover of Winds of Change.

Winds of Change - Back Cover

Anyone that wants to be placed on the pre-order list, please click on the picture below and fill out the form, and you will be eligible for the pre-publication price.

To send a comment, a question, or a suggestion click on Mountain Man.

To return to the Article Link Bars click on Mountain Man logo.

Citation: Eddins, Ned. (Name of Article). Thefurtrapper.com. Afton, Wyoming. 2003.