Overland Route

“ No other section of the west ships so many cars of fresh peaches to market and its fame as an orange growing section is growing rapidly.
THE PAVILION AT TALLAC, ANOTHER POPULAR LAKE RESORT
The Overland Route joins the Road of a Thousand Wonders (between Portland, Oregon, and Los Angeles) at Roseville, a great railway center to be, with fifty-seven miles of yards, round-houses of sixty-four stalls, machine and car shops, club house, icing plant and hospital. From Roseville to Sacramento the nineteen mile journey is made past horse ranches (a notable one at Ben Ali) , and great dairy farms. ”

“ And, as animals are much cheaper upon the frontier than in the Eastern States, they should purchase their teams at or near the point where the overland journey is to commence.
Those living in the Northwestern States, having their own teams, and wishing to go to any point north of San Francisco, will of course make choice of the route which takes its departure from the Missouri River.
Those who live in the middle Western States, having their own means of transportation, and going to any point upon the Pacific coast, should take one of the middle routes. ”

“ Weather very cold and windy—no grass nor hay. We have traveled 200 miles without grass or hay, but have cut dry prairie grass where we could find it. Camped in a ravine half a mile north of St. Joseph. St. Joseph is quite a village, and doing a great deal of business at this time. But the way they fleece California emigrants is worth noticing. I should advise all going the overland route to take every thing along with them that they can of small weight, as every little thing costs three or four times as much here as at home. ”

“ Although the country, from the Missouri river to the Pacific, is quite as well adapted to the building of railroads—if we except the Nevada Mountains, and this exception would not apply to the Oregon route—as any of the eastern States, yet no private company can, or should be allowed to build such road, but it should be a national work, and subject to the regulation of the government, for the good of the people, when completed. ”

“ The passenger was stalled ten miles away, and orders from Rockton were to the effect that the Overland Express should take the cut-off. This diverged into the foothills, where there were no such deep cuts as on the direct route, and where it was hoped the drifts would not be so heavy. ”

“ The trail was divided off by various names, as city blocks are divided off by streets. Most of the men could call the route by heart. There was Salt Creek [234] and Grasshopper Creek and Walnut Creek and Elm Creek and the Big Blue, and the Big and Little Sandy, and Ash Point and the Little Blue and Thirty-two Mile Creek and Sand Hill Pond and the Platte River and then Fort Kearney, where, 294 miles from Leavenworth, the main Overland Trail to Denver and Salt Lake was struck. ”

“ Copyright by F. A. Rinehart, Omaha.
The curves which have been thus saved by the new line would be sufficient to turn a train around eleven times. The power saved in moving an average freight train because of less grades would lift an average man eight thousand five hundred miles. The power saved in moving such a train because of the shorter distance would be sufficient to carry a man two hundred round trips between New York and San Francisco. The heart of Great Salt Lake is crossed by the Overland Limited by daylight. ”

“ The right hand roads are all camping roads, and extend some of them 12 miles to some clover patches, and the old Lawson cut-off leads through that gap on the right, where an Oregon party went two or three years ago and nearly all perished. ”

“ Buffalo Bill tells many of his own adventures as a scout for the United States Army, and anecdotes of the many officers he met in that capacity.
WHERE AN EMIGRANT TRAIN HAD PASSED. Another wonderful story is that of the creation of the Overland Stage Route. The coaches were huge, swinging affairs, drawn by six horses or mules, the finest to be had, and these were usually driven at a gallop over the rough trails and breakneck descents. They went as fast as a hundred miles a day, the horses being changed every ten miles at the roadside houses. ”

“ There is probably nothing that marks the progress of civilization more distinctly than [Pg 50] do the perfected modes and conveniences of travel. It is strange, but true, however, that so long as our prairies shall stretch themselves from river to ocean the imprint of the overland trail can never be obliterated. Today, after a lapse of over fifty years, whoever passes within seeing distance of the old trail can, upon the crest of grain and grass, note its serpentine windings, as marked by a light and sickly color of green. ”

“ From Offenburg to Hornberg the road makes a good stiff climb of twenty-seven miles, and some 1200 English feet in altitude, with a fair number of minor undulations on the way to diversify it. I will not describe the route, though it is one of the most beautiful I have ever travelled—rocky hills, ruined castles, huge, straight-stemmed pines that clamber up green slopes, or halt in sombre line against steeps of broken crag; the reality surpasses my poor powers of description. ”

“ During the earlier years of the period 1849-1860 the emigrant and gold-seeker almost monopolized the California and Oregon Trail. Mail and freight service were in their infancy. The years 1849-1854 may be well portrayed by a study of the fortune hunters and emigrants. Further unity is lent to such a period by the fact that, with a few minor exceptions, the route of the trail as established by the end of 1849 remained the same throughout the ensuing five years. The period of the late fifties saw the emigrant sharing the trail with stage-coaches and long trains of freight wagons. ”

“ But since the advent of motor vehicles, transcontinental highways have again become of great importance. For many reasons it is highly desirable that there should be good roads clear across the continent. Two have been proposed, and in sections meet the requirements of a great transcontinental highway; but neither is yet completed. One is the Oregon Highway, which follows the old Oregon Trail. This is the route over which Ezra Meeker traveled by ox-team in 1906 and on which many monuments have been erected to commemorate the pioneers of the 1840's and '50's. ”

“ Ten years ago, when the Great Northern was projected, your father saw that a road across here was a tactical move, but the investors were in a hurry to get a line through to Springfield, and dropped this route. ”

“ This road was to leave the old Oregon road at Fort Hall, then to follow the Truckee and the Humboldt River, to cross the Modoc and the Klamath country and the mountains into the Rogue River Valley, then pass through the Umpqua Canyon onward into the Willamette Valley. By incredible effort with ax and saw, ropes and chains, in 1846 emigrants with their wagons and teams came over the Southern Oregon route which they developed into a widened trail ”

“ TRAIL OF THE ASTORIANS 235 The two companies of half famished travelers struggled along on opposite sides of the Snake until they emerged into the open country. Mr. Hunt, on the Idaho side, found an Indian camp, near where Weiser now stands, where he for- tunately was able to obtain an Indian guide to lead him along the natural highway across the Blue Mountains to the Colum- bia, a route first used by the Indians and later forming part of the old Oregon Trail, and now traversed by the main line of the Oregon- Washington Railway. ”

“ The Great Northern had originally surveyed ten miles into this section with the intention of crossing it, as by that route it could strike a favorable terminal point at a great economy of distance. The difficulties of clearing and grading were found so unsurmountable for an infant road, however, that the project had been finally abandoned. ”

“ Now that we have our splendid Pacific Highway, built at enormous cost, with all the modern implements, rock crushers, steam rollers, and plows, and by the labor of hundreds of men, it is well for us to remember that the first road in southern Oregon and through the Rogue River valley was built by the labor of fifteen men with nothing but axes in their bare hands, and amidst perils and hardships that would strike terror to any but the stoutest hearts. ”

“ As pioneers these people have un- dergone incredible hardships, and having now safely passed the Blue mountain range with their wagons and effects, have established a durable road from Mis- souri to Oregon, which will serve to mark permanently the route for larger numbers, each succeeding year, while they have practically demonstrated that wagons drawn by horses or oxen can cross the Rocky mountains to the Co- lumbia river, contrary to all the sinister assertions of all those who pretended it to be impossible. ”

“ The Old Oregon Trail takes bold way through some of the very finest scenery of the West. These new ships of the desert, the passenger trains, glide gracefully down from the aerial highways of the mountain passes into the heart of our fertile oases. Whichever way the traveler turns he sees something absolutely new, and often in strange contrast with what he has just been beholding. ”

“ Mere nearness, with a taste for personal adventure, causes the southern border element to brave the overland journey. The northwestern overland travellers are more cautious. They have longer roads to drag over. ”

“ Along this great trail crossing the waters men bent their steps toward Oregon and California, men from the banks of the Missouri, from Illinois, and now even from far-off New England—where at last they had learned the “easy way West” and had begun to travel, as their friends to the southward had been doing for so many years. Thus, then, began the great Oregon trail, this road that might, with justice, have been called an open highway when Frémont “explored” the Rockies, albeit a highway almost unsettled, as it is to-day over much of its length, though peopled thick with mighty memories. ”

“ The Northwest Pacific “Scenic Route” reached the town in 1915 and has the distinction, it is said, of being by far the costliest railroad of its length in America, an average of one hundred and thirty thousand dollars per mile having been expended in its construction. For nearly half its length it threads its way through the gigantic canyon of the Eel River, following the stream so closely that it is seldom out of sight. The scenery along this road, a local authority insists, is hardly to be surpassed in the whole country. ”

“ Not a man of the eight [Pg 332] hundred was lost. There were mounted men in the river, ready to lend a helping hand at the first cry for aid, and they all crossed safely, though many, I dare say, in fear and trembling. When the men were over, the married officers were permitted to join the ladies, and we were ferried across in the skiff belonging to the stage line, for which little water-excursion we paid two dollars a head to the Overland Mail Company. Carriages and wagons were brought over by the wagon-master and teamsters ”

“ When traversing moderately hilly districts, some low ridge or opening may be found, which may form a pass from the one side to the other, and the line may be laid out for a long distance to lead gradually up to the highest point. But when a route has to be laid out over some of those lofty mountain ranges which are met with abroad, the locating of a suitable line, or of any line, becomes particularly intricate and difficult. ”

“ Today the Southern Railway enters the "Sapphire Country," in which Asheville lies, by practically the same route as the old Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by red man and pioneer from the Carolina coast.
20 In our entire region of the Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically every old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany country is now occupied by an important railway system, with the exception of the Warrior's Trail through Cumberland Gap to central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania. ”

“ Ever since Oregon was first heard of in the romantic, adventurous, hunting, trapping Wild West days, it seems to have been regarded as the most attractive and promising of all the Pacific countries for farmers. While yet the whole region as well as the way to it was wild, ere a single road or bridge was built, undaunted by the trackless thousand-mile distances and scalping, cattle-stealing Indians, long trains of covered wagons began to crawl wearily westward, crossing how many plains, rivers, ridges, and mountains, fighting the painted savages and weariness and famine. ”

“ History has no record of a greater number of emigrants ever making so long a journey as did these pioneers. There must have been three hundred and fifty thousand in the years of the great rush overland, from 1843 to 1857. Careful estimates of the total migration westward from 1843 to 1869, when the first railroad across the continent was completed, make the number nearly half a million.
The animals driven over the Plains during these years [39] were legion. Besides those that labored under the yoke, in harness, and under saddle, there was a vast herd of loose stock. ”

“ It is really the commencement of a great trade, that will require a vast capital, and employ the energy and industry of a large number of persons.
“There are no less than four lofty ranges of mountains to cross on the Central route, the Rocky Mountains, at Bridger’s Pass, being the most passable crossing; the Wasatch, the Humboldt, and the Sierra Nevada are barely passable in summer. By the way of Pen d’Oreille Lake, on the Northern route, freight can be taken from the Columbia to the Missouri nearly all winter. ”