By COLONEL HENRY INMAN Late Assistant Quartermaster, United States Army Author of The Old Santa Fé Trail , Etc. And COLONEL WILLIAM F. CODY, “Buffalo Bill” Late Chief of Scouts Etext Edition edited by MICHAEL S. OVERTON 1898 (original edition), 2002 (Etext edition) See PUBLICATION INFORMATION at the end of this Etext for a more complete bibliographic listing of the original source. There are seven historic trails crossing the great plains of the interior of the continent, all of which for a port

On the return of Lewis and Clarke's expedition from the Rocky Mountains where they had wintered with the Mandans, a celebrated chief of that tribe, Big White, was induced to accompany Captain Lewis to Washington in order that he might see the President, and learn something of the power of the people of the country far to the East. The Mandans at that time were at war with the Sioux, and Big White was fearful that on his return to his own tribe some of the Sioux might cut him and his party off, s

In 1812 General William H. Ashley, the head of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, travelled up the Platte Valley, which a few years previously had been traversed by Captain Ezekiel Williams, whose routes were nearly the same. This party had a particularly hard time. Before they reached the buffalo country the Indians had driven every herd away. In the company there were two Spaniards, who were one morning left behind at camp to catch some horses that had strayed. The two men stopped at the house of

In 1832 Captain William Sublette,[10] a partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, and one of the most active, intrepid, and renowned leaders in the trade, started on a trapping expedition up the Platte Valley. He was accompanied by Robert Campbell, another of the pioneers in the fur industry, and sixty men well mounted, with their camp equipage carried on packhorses. At Independence, Missouri, he met a party commanded by Nathaniel J. Wyeth of Boston, Massachusetts. Mr. Wyeth, having conceived t

As early as the first decade of the present century, the great fur companies sent out expeditions up the valley of the Platte in the charge of their agents, to trap the beaver and other animals valuable for their beautiful skins. The hardships of these pioneers in the beginning of a trade which in a short time assumed gigantic proportions are a story of suffering and privation which has few parallels in the history of the development of our mid-continent region. Until the establishment of the se

Utah was settled in 1847 by a religious community of people generally known by the name of Mormons, but they style themselves, “The Latter-day Saints of the Church of Jesus Christ.” In the great valley of a vast inland sea, the existence of which was unknown to the world seventy-five years ago, whose surroundings were a desert in the most rigid definition of the term, a great commonwealth has been established unparalleled in the history of its origin by that of any of the civilized countries of

The most terrible fate that ever befell a caravan on the Old Trail was that known to history as the Mountain Meadows Massacre. The story of this damnable, outrageous, and wholesale murder is as follows:— In the spring of 1857 a band of emigrants numbering one hundred and thirty-six, from Missouri and Arkansas, set out for Southern California. The party had about six hundred head of cattle, thirty wagons, and thirty horses and mules. At least thirty thousand dollars worth of plunder was collected

Owing to the gold discoveries of 1849, the state of California was born in almost a single day. The ocean route to the Pacific was tedious and circuitous, and the impetuosity of the mining population demanded quicker time for the delivery of its mails than was taken by the long sea-voyage. From the terminus of telegraphic communication in the East there intervened more than two thousand miles of a region uninhabited, except by hostile tribes of savages. The mail from the Atlantic seaboard, acros

The excitement caused in 1858 by the alleged discovery of gold in the vicinity of Pike's Peak created a fever among the people of the United States, and there was a mighty exodus from everywhere east of the Missouri, similar to that to the Alaskan regions to-day. The Missouri River was at that time the western terminal of the few railroads then in existence, and there was very little probability that they would make farther progress toward the setting sun. The individual who had determined to st

From the earliest westward march of civilization, the beautiful valley of the Platte, through which the Salt Lake Trail coursed its way, has been a grand pathway to the mountains, and thence over their snow-capped summits to the golden shores of the Pacific Ocean. In a little more than a third of a century, through the agency of that grandest of civilizers, the locomotive, the charming and fertile valley has been carved into prosperous commonwealths, whose development from an almost desert waste

The Otoes, once occupying the region at the mouth of the Platte, were a very brave and interesting tribe. When first known to the whites, in the early part of the century, the chief of the nation was I-e-tan, a man of great courage, excellent judgment, and crafty, as are always the most intelligent of the North American savages. His leading attributes were penetration of character, close observation of everything that occurred, and a determination to carry out his ideas, which were remarkable in

A little more than half a century ago the many bands of the great Sioux nation[45] hardly knew anything of the civilization of the whites in any part of the continent; none of their chiefs had ever visited the capital of the nation, or, for that matter, any American settlement. They knew nothing of the English language. The few whites they had ever met were those employed by the great fur companies. They regarded them to be a wise sort of a people, a little inferior, however, to themselves, livi

The tribe of Indians known as the Crows[50] are entitled to the very marked distinction of being the most manly in their conduct in its relation to the whites. The integrity of their friendship has been tested on many occasions, and they have never proved false to their protestations. Their chiefs declare that a Crow was never known to kill a white man excepting in self-defence. As has been the fate of the North American savage since that dark December day when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Ro

The folk-lore of the Blackfeet is very voluminous and full of humour. Of course, as in other tribes, superstition and enchantment make up the basis of their stories; and it will be noticed by the student of their traditions, that there is that same marked similarity to those related in the lodges of widely separated tribes, indicating a common origin for them all. Two of the more interesting of these tales are “The Lost Children” and “The Wolf-Man.” Once a camp of people stopped on the bank of a

In 1863, the Indians of the valley under the leadership of the celebrated Sioux war-chief, Spotted Tail, broke out, and the government determined to chastise them. An expedition was organized, which was to rendezvous at North Platte, consisting of the First Nebraska Cavalry, Twelfth Missouri Cavalry, a detachment of the Second United States and Seventh Iowa Cavalry, Colonel Brown, the senior officer, commanding the whole. Some of the operations of this expedition and personal adventures have bee

In May, 1857, I started for Salt Lake City with a herd of beef cattle, in charge of Frank and Bill McCarthy, for General Albert Sidney Johnston's army, which was then being sent across the plains to fight the Mormons. Nothing occurred to interrupt our journey until we reached Plum Creek, on the South Platte River, thirty-five miles west of old Fort Kearny. We had made a morning drive and had camped for dinner. The wagon-masters and a majority of the men had gone to sleep under the mess wagons; t

I remained at Fort Sedgwick during the winter, and early the following spring I returned to Fort McPherson, under orders to report to Major-General Emory of the Fifth Cavalry, who had been appointed commander of the District of the Republican, with headquarters at that post. As the command had been almost continuously in the field, it was generally thought that we were to have a long rest. During the fall of 1869 there were two or three scouting expeditions sent out, but nothing of very great im

The majority of old-time trappers and scouts always had an inexhaustible fund of anecdote and adventure. Stories were often told at night when the day's duty of making the round of the traps was done, the beaver skinned, and the pelts hung up to cure. Their simple supper disposed, and being comfortably seated around their fire of blazing logs, each one of them indulged, as a preliminary, in his favourite manner of smoking. Some adhered to the traditional clay pipe, others, more fastidious, used

One of the Old American Fur Company's trappers by the name of Frazier, as often told of him around the camp-fire, was one of those athletic men who could outrun, outjump, and throw down any man among the more than a hundred with whom he associated at the time. He was the best off-hand shot in the whole crowd, and possessed of a remarkably steady nerve. He met with his death in a curious way. Once when away up the Platte he with one of his companions were hunting for game in an aspen grove. Sudde

In this story of the Salt Lake Trail, our account would not be complete without including the history of the great “Iron Trail” that now practically, for a long distance, follows the grassy path of the lumbering stage-coach, the slowly moving freight caravans drawn by patient oxen, or the dangerous route of the relatively rapid Pony Express. No better story of the construction of the Great Union Pacific Railroad can be found than the address of its chief engineer, General G. M. Dodge, before the