I wrote last month about Ayers Natural Bridge, and its fame as a day trip for the emigrants to Oregon. Another wonder they encountered along the trail was Ice Slough, near the Sweetwater River. The Oregon Trail crossed the Sweetwater many times as the river meandered from just past Independence […]
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After South Pass, the Parting of the Ways
By the middle of July, the Oregon emigrants in the 1840s hoped to have crossed the Continental Divide. Most of them crossed through South Pass. Native Americans had known of this route through the Rocky Mountains for centuries, but it was “discovered” by John Jacob Astor’s fur traders in 1812. […]
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