Fork of the Road was the locale along the Mojave River where the junction of the Mojave Trail / Mojave Road and the Old Spanish Trail / Mormon Road was located in San Bernardino County, California. The location of Fork of the Road was on the north side of the Mojave River, 18.75 miles southwest of Bitter Spring, about 14.5 miles east of Grapevine, and 10.9 miles west of Camp Cady. The location was an oasis where the Mojave River came to the surface. There travelers could get water, camp, rest and graze their animals before or after crossing the desert. [1] [2]
By the fall of 1864, a man named Alcorn, from Kentucky and his wife from South Carolina, had started a ranch at Fork of the Road. From November 13, 1864, following an Indian attack on settlers along the Mojave River the Alcorn Ranch was the gathering place for defense of the settler families along the river between Point of Rocks and Camp Cady. Mrs. Jane Rousseau who traveled with her husband, a doctor, in a wagon train from Salt Lake City to Southern California in late 1864, wrote that Alcorn had supplied them with feed for their horses when they had run out of it at Bitter Spring. They stopped at the Alcorn Ranch and her husband treated "a young man about to die, a son of Mr. Allcorn....", before moving on up the Mojave River. [3]
The Mojave River is an intermittent river in the eastern San Bernardino Mountains and the Mojave Desert in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Most of its flow is underground, while its surface channels remain dry most of the time, with the exception of the headwaters and several bedrock gorges in the lower reaches.
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).
The Amargosa Valley is the valley through which the Amargosa River flows south, in Nye County, southwestern Nevada and Inyo County in the state of California. The south end is alternately called the "Amargosa River Valley'" or the "Tecopa Valley." Its northernmost point is around Beatty, Nevada and southernmost is Tecopa, California, where the Amargosa River enters into the Amargosa Canyon.
The Muddy River, formerly known as the Moapa River, is a short river located in Clark County, in southern Nevada, United States. It is in the Mojave Desert, approximately 60 miles (97 km) north of Las Vegas.
The Old Spanish Trail is a historical trade route that connected the northern New Mexico settlements of Santa Fe, New Mexico with those of Los Angeles, California and southern California. Approximately 700 mi (1,100 km) long, the trail ran through areas of high mountains, arid deserts, and deep canyons. It is considered one of the most arduous of all trade routes ever established in the United States. Explored, in part, by Spanish explorers as early as the late 16th century, the trail was extensively used by traders with pack trains from about 1830 until the mid-1850s.
Newberry Springs is an unincorporated community in the western Mojave Desert of Southern California, located at the foot of the Newberry Mountains in San Bernardino County, California, United States. Newberry Spring is a spring that in the 19th century supplied water to the local Santa Fe Railway and originally was a camping place. The population at the 2000 census was 2,895.
The Mojave Road, also known as Old Government Road, is a historic route and present day dirt road across what is now the Mojave National Preserve in the Mojave Desert in the United States. This rough road stretched 147 miles (237 km) from Beale's Crossing, to Fork of the Road location along the north bank of the Mojave River where the old Mojave Road split off from the route of the Old Spanish Trail/Mormon Road.
Point of Rocks is a point of mountain range, as yet unnamed, that projects into the bed of the Mojave River in San Bernardino County, California. This range of mountains runs south to north along the east side of the Mojave River between Oro Grande and the mountain that Point of Rocks is a part, a mile northeast of Helendale.
The Overland Trail was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American West during the 19th century. While portions of the route had been used by explorers and trappers since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as a route alternative to the Oregon, California, and Mormon trails through central Wyoming. The Overland Trail was famously used by the Overland Stage Company owned by Ben Holladay to run mail and passengers to Salt Lake City, Utah, via stagecoaches in the early 1860s. Starting from Atchison, Kansas, the trail descended into Colorado before looping back up to southern Wyoming and rejoining the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger. The stage line operated until 1869 when the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad eliminated the need for mail service via stagecoach.
Glen Helen Regional Park is a county park located in San Bernardino, California, United States adjacent to the Cajon Pass. It was the site of both US Festivals of the early 1980s. It is also home to the Glen Helen Amphitheater, the largest outdoor amphitheater in the United States. The park also hosts several off-road races since 1985.
Camp Cady was a U.S. Army Camp, on the Mojave Road near the Mojave River in the Mojave Desert, located about 20 miles east of modern-day Barstow, California in San Bernardino County, at an elevation of 1690 feet. Camp Cady was named after Major Albemarle Cady, 6th Infantry Regiment, who was a friend of Carleton and commander at Fort Yuma in 1860.
Stone's Ferry is a former settlement founded by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and ferry crossing of the Colorado River between Nevada and Arizona, in Clark County, Nevada, United States.
Beaver Lake was a lake on the west side of the Colorado River in what is now Clark County, Nevada. Beaver Lake lay on a north–south axis, almost entirely within the boundaries of the Camp Mohave Military Reservation. The southern end of the lake was a mile and half west of Fort Mohave and its northern end was located about 2 miles northwest of the camp. The Mojave Road passed by the northern extremity of the lake. Since 1892 the lake has dried up and have returned to desert or been made into farmland. It appears as a depression running north and south, west of the river at an elevation of 490 feet or less.
Bitter Spring is a spring within the Fort Irwin National Training Center in San Bernardino County, California. It lies at an elevation of 1355 feet and is located in a valley between the Soda Mountains to the east, the Tiefort Mountains to the northwest, Alvord Mountain to the southwest and Cronese Mountains to the south and southeast.
Spanish Canyon, is a canyon that has its head near the middle of the southwest slope of Alvord Mountain below Impassable Pass at 35°07′10″N116°35′37″W and trends south to its mouth, 1.6 miles east northeast of Alvord Well at an elevation of 2, 188 feet / 667 meters. The canyon is named for the Old Spanish Trail which passed through the canyon.
Lane's Crossing was a ford below the Lower Narrows of the Mojave River in San Bernardino County, California, United States. "Lane's", a ranch and store for travelers at this crossing on the Mormon Road, was established by "Captain" Aaron G. Lane the first pioneer settler on the Mojave River.
Bryman, is a populated place in the central Mojave Desert, within San Bernardino County, California. It lies along the Mojave River in the northern Victor Valley, at an elevation of 2,526 feet . It is on the historic U.S. Route 66, 5 miles north of Oro Grande, and south of Helendale.
The Mohave Trail was a Native American trade route between Mohave Indian villages on the Colorado River and settlements in coastal Southern California.
Mormon Road, also known to the 49ers as the Southern Route, of the California Trail, was a seasonal wagon road first pioneered by a Mormon party from Salt Lake City, Utah led by Jefferson Hunt, that followed the route of Spanish explorers and the Old Spanish Trail across southwestern Utah, northwestern Arizona, southern Nevada and the Mojave Desert of California to Los Angeles in 1847. From 1855, it became a military and commercial wagon route between California and Utah, called the Los Angeles – Salt Lake Road. In later decades this route was variously called the "Old Mormon Road", the "Old Southern Road", or the "Immigrant Road" in California. In Utah, Arizona and Nevada it was known as the "California Road".
The Mojave Road Los Angeles was designated a California Historic Landmark on March 19, 1985. It runs from Drum Barracks in Los Angeles County to the Colorado River in San Bernardino County, California
Coordinates: 34°54′05″N116°45′35″W / 34.90139°N 116.75972°W