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The Trapper's Trail or Trappers' Trail is a north-south path along the eastern base of the Rocky Mountains that links the Great Platte River Road at Fort Laramie and the Santa Fe Trail at Bent's Old Fort. Along this path there were a number of trading posts, also called trading forts. [1]
In 1802, after the Spanish territory of Louisiana was given back to France through treaty in 1800, trappers began entering the Louisiana Territory and trapped beavers in the mountains. [2] In 1803, the United States purchased the land which encompassed the present state of Colorado with the Louisiana Purchase and explorers came to the area to survey the land. [3] The trail was an important trade route for fur trappers and traders in the North American fur trade from about 1820 and into the Pikes Peak Gold Rush beginning 1859. [1]
Trapper's Trail was first known to be used in 1820 for Stephen H. Long’s expedition. Colonel Henry Dodge used it in 1835 for the Dodge-Leavenworth Expedition or First Dragoon Expedition. Trapper’s Trail was also used by John C. Fremont (1843-1844) and General Stephen W. Kearney (1845). [1] In 1846 it was used by a group of Mormon immigrants who established a branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints near the southern end of the trail. The sick detachments of the Mormon Battalion used this trail to return to the Mormon pioneers on the Mormon Trail. [1] [4] It was also used during the gold rush of 1859. [1]
From north to south, the main legs and stops along the trail are:
The trail starts at Fort Laramie in Wyoming, which is located along the North Platte River. [1] [5] The trail follows Crow Creek to the Latham, Colorado area, where it traversed along the South Platte River. [2] Traveling along the river, four trading posts were built in the late 1830s and are located and are part of the South Platte Trail. The most northern trading post is Fort Saint Vrain. [1] [5] The following are: Fort Vasquez, Fort Jackson, and Fort Lupton, first called Fort Lancaster. [1] The trail continues along the South Platte River to an area near Denver [1]
There are three trails between these areas. The oldest route, runs the closest to the mountains. It follows along the East Plum, Monument and Fountain Creeks and roughly ran along what is now I-25. [1]
The Cherry Creek Trail follows Cherry Creek [1] and runs essentially along the current Highway 83 between present day Denver and northern Colorado Springs near I-25. [6] There are two stops along the Cherry Creek Trail. Twenty Mile House, located at the junction of Parker Road and Highway 83 in Parker, has a historical marker noting it was a stop on Trapper's Trail. [6] California Ranch was a stage station and stockade at the junction of Highways 83 and 86 near Franktown. It also has a historical marker its role on the trail. [6]
The Jimmy Camp Trail joins the Cherry Creek Trail near the present town of Franktown, runs through Falcon, and down Highway 24. The trail runs between the Arkansas and Platte Rivers. [7] Jimmy's Camp site (now a ghost town in El Paso County) is east of Highway 24 at Jimmy Camp Creek. [5] [7] The Charles Fagan Grave, also called Fagan's Grave, is about 12.5 miles due north of Falcon. [8]
From the present Colorado Springs area to El Pueblo, the route is similar to the I-25 route. [1]
From El Pueblo, also called Fort Pueblo, there are two routes. [1] [lower-alpha 1] One is east to Bent's Old Fort, the trading post historical site is along the Arkansas River, and the trail follows Highway 50 and the Arkansas River from Pueblo. [9]
Another route is from El Pueblo to Taos which is called the Taos Trail. [10] The trail goes south, near the present day route of Interstate 25. John and Luisa Brown's trading post (1845-1849) was where the trail crossed a creek near present day Colorado City, Colorado. The trail continued southward to Huerfano Butte north of Walsenburg, then southwest to La Veta Pass following the route of U.S. Route 160 to Fort Garland then south to Taos through the San Luis Valley along the approximate route of Colorado State Highway 159 and New Mexico Highway 522. [5] From Pueblo to Taos the distance was approximately 170 mi (270 km) [3]
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 Territory. 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 Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) long route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers traveled from 1846–47. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
The North Platte River is a major tributary of the Platte River and is approximately 716 miles (1,152 km) long, counting its many curves. In a straight line, it travels about 550 miles (890 km), along its course through the U.S. states of Colorado, Wyoming, and Nebraska.
Fort Laramie was a significant 19th-century trading post, diplomatic site, and military installation located at the confluence of the Laramie and the North Platte Rivers. They joined in the upper Platte River Valley in the eastern part of the present-day U.S. state of Wyoming. The fort was founded as a private trading-post in the 1830s to service the overland fur trade; in 1849, it was purchased by the United States Army. The site was located east of the long climb leading to the best and lowest crossing-point over the Rocky Mountains at South Pass and became a popular stopping-point for migrants on the Oregon Trail. Along with Bent's Fort on the Arkansas River, the trading post and its supporting industries and businesses were the most significant economic hub of commerce in the region.
Ceran St. Vrain, born Ceran de Hault de Lassus de Saint-Vrain, was the son of a French aristocrat who emigrated to the Spanish Louisiana in the late 18th century; his mother was from St. Louis, where he was born. To gain the ability to trade, in 1831 he became a naturalized Mexican citizen in what is now the state of New Mexico. He formed a partnership with American traders William, George and Charles Bent; together they established the trading post of Bent's Fort. It was the only privately held fort in the West.
Old Colorado City, formerly Colorado City, was once a town, but it is now a neighborhood within the city of Colorado Springs, Colorado. Its commercial district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. It was founded during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 1859 and was involved in the mining industry, both as a supply hub and as a gold ore processing center beginning in the 1890s. Residents of Colorado City worked at some of the 50 coal mines of the Colorado Springs area. It was briefly the capital of the Colorado Territory. For many years, Colorado Springs prohibited the use of alcohol within its border due to the lifestyle of Colorado City's opium dens, bordellos, and saloons. It is now a tourist area, with boutiques, art galleries, and restaurants.
Before it was founded, the site of modern-day Colorado Springs, Colorado, was part of the American frontier. Old Colorado City, built in 1859 during the Pike's Peak Gold Rush was the Colorado Territory capital. The town of Colorado Springs was founded by General William Jackson Palmer as a resort town. Old Colorado City was annexed into Colorado Springs. Railroads brought tourists and visitors to the area from other parts of the United States and abroad. The city was noted for junctions for seven railways: Denver and Rio Grande (1870), Denver and New Orleans Manitou Branch (1882), Colorado Midland (1886–1918), Colorado Springs and Interurban, Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe (1889), Rock Island (1889), and Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek Railways. It was also known for mining exchanges and brokers for the Cripple Creek Gold Rush.
The Emigrant Trail in Wyoming, which is the path followed by Western pioneers using the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, spans 400 miles (640 km) through the U.S. state of Wyoming. The trail entered from Nebraska on the eastern border of the state near the present day town of Torrington and exited on the western border near the towns of Cokeville and Afton. An estimated 350,000 to 400,000 settlers traveled on the trail through Wyoming between 1841 and 1868. All three trails follow the same path through most of the state. The Mormon Trail splits at Fort Bridger and enters Utah, while the Oregon and California Trails continue to Idaho.
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 370 miles (600 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".
Fort Morgan, first called Camp Tyler and Camp Wardwell, was established in the present-day city of Fort Morgan in Morgan County, Colorado as a U.S. military post in 1864. It operated until 1868. There is a historical marker in a city park in remembrance of its history.
Stanley Buchholz Kimball was a historian at Southern Illinois University. He was an expert on eastern European history and also wrote on Latter-day Saint history, including his ancestor Heber C. Kimball and the Mormon Trail.
Camp Walbach, named in honor of General J. B. Walbach, was located approximately 25 miles northwest of Cheyenne, Wyoming and directly west of the crossing at the head of Lodge Pole Creek. It was established as a military post on September 20, 1858 in what was then Nebraska Territory to guard and protect the emigrants through Cheyenne Pass, a dangerous spot on the new Overland Trail. After going through Pass, the emigrants were soon on the Laramie Plains, where this trail connected and became a part of the Overland Stage Route from the south.
Fort Le Duc or Fort LeDuc was a square fort and trading post built near Wetmore, Colorado. It was named after trapper Maurice LeDuc or Maurice LeDoux, and constructed around 1830 or 1835.
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.
The historic 2,170-mile (3,490 km) Oregon Trail connected various towns along the Missouri River to Oregon's Willamette Valley. It was used during the 19th century by Great Plains pioneers who were seeking fertile land in the West and North.
The early history of the Arkansas Valley in Colorado began in the 1600s and to the early 1800s when explorers, hunters, trappers, and traders of European descent came to the region. Prior to that, Colorado was home to prehistoric people, including Paleo-Indians, Ancestral Puebloans, and Late prehistoric Native Americans.
South Platte Trail was a historic trail that followed the southern side of South Platte River from Fort Kearny in Nebraska to Denver, Colorado. Plains Indians, such as the Cheyenne and the Arapaho, hunted in the lands around the South Platte River. They also traded at trading posts along the route, as did white travelers. Travelers included trappers, traders, explorers, the military, and those following the gold rush. The trail was also used by the Pony Express.
El Pueblo, also called Fort Pueblo, was a trading post and fort near the present-day city of Pueblo in Pueblo County, Colorado. It operated from 1842 until 1854, selling goods, livestock, and produce. It was attacked in 1854, killing up to 19 men and capturing three people. A recreation of the fort is located at the El Pueblo History Museum at the site of the original fort.
Fort Wicked was a ranch and stage station on the Overland Trail from 1864 to 1868 in present-day Merino, Colorado. A historical marker commemorating the ranch is located at US 6 and CR-2.5. The ranch itself was located near a ford of the South Platte River, near where US-6 now crosses over the river. Fort Wicked was one of the few places along the trail to Denver that withstood an attack by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native Americans in the Colorado War of 1864. It was named Fort Wicked for the "bitter defence" made by Holon Godfrey, his family, and his employees.
Jimmy's Camp was a trading post established in 1833. The site is east of present-day Colorado Springs, Colorado on the southeast side of U.S. Route 24 and east of the junction with State Highway 94. Located along Trapper's Trail / Cherokee Trail, it was a rest stop for travelers and was known for its spring. Jimmy Camp was a ranch by 1870 and then a railway station on a spur of the Colorado and Southern Railway. After the ranch was owned by several individuals, it became part of the Banning Lewis Ranch. Now the land is an undeveloped park in Colorado Springs.
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| Trading posts and civilian forts |
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| U.S. and Spanish military forts |
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