California Hill | |
California Hill, rising from the South Platte River Valley to the crest to reach the North Platte River on the California and Oregon Trails. | |
Nearest city | Brule, Nebraska |
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Coordinates | 41°6′2.55″N101°58′53.58″W / 41.1007083°N 101.9815500°W Coordinates: 41°6′2.55″N101°58′53.58″W / 41.1007083°N 101.9815500°W |
Area | 140 acres (57 ha) |
Built | 1847 |
NRHP reference No. | 74001126 [1] |
Added to NRHP | July 15, 1974 |
California Hill is a hill in Nebraska, and the first major hill ascended by emigrants on the Oregon Trail. [2] [3] East of O'Fallon's Bluffs, the trail begins to turn southward along the South Platte River. The migrants had to make a decision of where to cross the river and then over the divide between the north and south branches. The North Platte River was the preferred route towards Fort Laramie and Casper, Wyoming. A variety of crossings were used, but the most often chosen was named the California Crossing. Having travelled 53 miles (85 km) west of O'Fallon's Bluffs this crossing was the most direct Ash Hollow and the North Platte River. While shallow, the South Plattes sandy bottom created a major obstacle for heavy wagons. Quicksand and moving water were the cause of wrecks, drownings, and deaths from exposure. This was accentuated as the main crossing season was in May and early June and the rivers became swollen from the spring melt in the mountains. [4] Once over, the emigrants faced California Hill. This climb of 240 feet (73 m) was over a 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) before reaching the plateau that stretched between the two forks of the Platte rivers. While not as steep as the hills ahead of them on the trail, this was the first major hill that they faced. [4]
The South Platte River has changed since the era of the wagon trains due to the growth of brush, and other vegetation, and changed created by the division of water for irrigation of the fields along the valley. Trail ruts are visible for almost 0.75 miles (1.21 km) to the southeast reaching U.S. Highway 30 and for 0.5 miles (0.80 km) to the northwest disappearing into the cultivated field on the plateau. The ruts leading up from U.S. 30 are gentle swales covered by plants. To the northwest, the ruts appear as cuts in the hillside. [4]
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The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) east-west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the current states of Idaho and Oregon.
The Platte River is a major river in the State of Nebraska. It is about 310 mi (500 km) long; measured to its farthest source via its tributary, the North Platte River, it flows for over 1,050 miles (1,690 km). The Platte River is a tributary of the Missouri River, which itself is a tributary of the Mississippi River which flows to the Gulf of Mexico. The Platte over most of its length is a broad, shallow, meandering stream with a sandy bottom and many islands—a braided stream.
Scotts Bluff National Monument is located west of the City of Gering in western Nebraska, United States. This National Park Service site protects over 3,000 acres of historic overland trail remnants, mixed-grass prairie, rugged badlands, towering bluffs and riparian area along the North Platte River. The park boasts over 100,000 annual visitors.
South Pass is the collective term for two mountain passes on the American Continental Divide, in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. It lies in a broad high region, 35 miles (56 km) wide, between the nearly 14,000 ft (4,300 m) Wind River Range to the north and the over 8,500 ft (2,600 m) Oregon Buttes and arid, saline near-impassible Great Divide Basin to the south. The Pass lies in southwestern Fremont County, approximately 35 miles (56 km) SSW of Lander.
The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) long route from Illinois to Utah that members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints traveled for 3 months. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 1,600 mi (2,600 km) across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers to Wyoming. The trail has several splits and cutoffs for alternative routes around major landforms and to different destinations, with a combined length of over 5,000 mi (8,000 km).
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Fort Kearny was a historic outpost of the United States Army founded in 1848 in the western U.S. during the middle and late 19th century. The fort was named after Col. and later General Stephen Watts Kearny. The outpost was located along the Oregon Trail near Kearney, Nebraska. The town of Kearney took its name from the fort. The "e" was added to Kearny by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name. A portion of the original site is preserved as Fort Kearny State Historical Park by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
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The Great Platte River Road was a major overland travel corridor approximately following the course of the Platte River in present-day Nebraska and Wyoming that was shared by several popular emigrant trails during the 19th century, including the Trapper's Trail, the Oregon Trail, the Mormon Trail, the California Trail, the Pony Express route, and the military road connecting Fort Leavenworth and Fort Laramie. The road, which extended nearly 800 miles (1,300 km) from the Second Fort Kearny to Fort Laramie, was utilized primarily from 1841 to 1866. In modern times it is often regarded as a sort of superhighway of its era, and has been referred to as "the grand corridor of America's westward expansion".
Robidoux Pass, also known as Roubadeau Pass, Roubedeau Pass, Roubideau Pass, Roubidoux Pass and Roubadeau Pass Gap, is a gap passing through the Wildcat Hills near Scottsbluff, Nebraska about 9 miles (14 km) west of Gering, Nebraska. The gap was on the Great Platte River Road section of the historic Oregon or Emigrant Trail. It is at an elevation of 4,554 feet (1,388 m). Used by thousands of emigrants to the west from 1843-1851, the pass is a National Historic Landmark.
Names Hill is a bluff located on the bank of the Green River in the U.S. state of Wyoming, where travelers on the Oregon and California trails carved their names into the rock. It is one of three notable "recording areas" along the emigrant trails in Wyoming along with Register Cliff and Independence Rock. The site was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on April 16, 1969.
In the American Old West, overland trails were built by pioneers and immigrants throughout the 19th century and especially between 1829 and 1870 as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle much of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States were spurred by various motives, among them religious persecution and economic incentives, to move to destinations in the far west via routes including the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again enticed mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further lured people to travel overland to the west.
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