Stories Retold

John App keeps a diary when he and his friend, “Jake”, go west for the California Gold Rush in 1850.

Always one to be fully prepared, John App began organizing his provisions and supplies in February of 1850.

John App starts accumulating the supplies and provisions he knows are necessary for him to successfully complete the journey to California.

John App leaves his home in Pekin, Illinois with his loaded wagon, two mules and his friend, Jake. Destination: California.

Today is Easter. John and Jake are camped at a farm, near Macomb, Illinois, and the owner has invited them to his house for dinner.

John is visiting a familiar family in Fort Madison, Iowa, the Rineharts, who were friends of his family in Pekin, Illinois.

Today they crossed the Des Moines River. There were 20 to 30 teams waiting to cross, according to John, so it was a busy place.

Having traveled 20 miles (32 km) yesterday, and 20 miles today John App and his friend, Jake, are camped in south central Iowa near today’s Promise City.

For them it was cold, windy, snowy and all they had for shelter was their wagon. Yet, John never complained about the weather during his entire trip… it was just part of each day’s journey.

By 1850 St. Joseph was one of the busiest spots in the nation. Travelers from the east have done their best getting to St. Joseph any way they could.

Today they arrived in St. Joseph, Missouri. While they are here they are busy gathering supplies and waiting their turn to cross the Missouri River.

John is also making repairs, getting caught up with mail, and waiting his turn for the ferry. Once across, they will be traveling the St. Joseph Road on their way toward Fort Kearny.

John App and Jake have crossed the Missouri River and are on their way to the gold fields in California. In this post we meet John’s traveling companion, Jacob Broadwell.

They are now in Indian territory, camped tonight just west of today’s Hiawatha, Kansas. They are about halfway between St. Joseph, Missouri and today’s Marysville, Kansas.

About 115 miles west of St. Joseph, they pass through an area which 10 years later was to become the Hollenberg Pony Express station and also the Rock Creek Station.

They are following the Little Blue River, a river in southern Nebraska and northern Kansas. Soon their trail will meet the main California-Oregon Trail on south side of the Platte River.

John and Jake are about 350 miles west of St. Joseph. They are passing Fort Kearny (established in 1848) on the south side of the Platte River.

On areas of the trail where many wagons could travel side-by-side, the ruts take on more of a shallow indentation of the earth rather than grooved wagon wheel tracks.

Entering by going over Windlass Hill, Ash Hollow with its water, wood, and grass was a welcome relief for the travelers. Emigrants stopped here for rest, and to make repairs.

Now they are passing the first really unusual geologic formation to be seen by emigrants who had never seen a mountain or even a bluff.

Seen by emigrants from 30 miles away, Chimney Rock marks the end of easy traveling across the prairies. It also gave them encouragement that they were headed in the right direction.

Fort Laramie served as a military post in the western Indian wars, and was the place where important treaties were signed between the US government and the Cheyenne, Sioux, Arapaho, Crow, Assiniboine, Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Nations.

The aerial footage in this video shows the landscape in a way that is not easily seen from the ground. It reveals the expansive landscape of the American West, which is very impressive and ruggedly beautiful.

At the deep ruts in Guernsey, Wyoming wagons going west traveled in single file over the sandstone surface gouging ruts ranging from 2 to 6 feet deep and no wider than the width of a wagon.

This is a huge granite boulder where travelers left their names – about 5,000 of them – painted in axle grease and chiseled into the stone. 170 years later a few names, especially the chiseled names, remain readable.

Devil’s Gate is a geologic formation that is 400 feet high, 300 feet wide at the top and 30 feet wide at the bottom through which the Sweetwater River flows. It was a curiosity to the emigrants.

Traveling over South Pass is the main route to the west through the Rockies for most of the emigrants, and at its summit is the Continental Divide. The wheel markings from the travelers’ wagons remain visible yet today in the hard packed soil.

Eighteen miles west of South Pass, the emigrants came to the first of several decision points on the road to California. John and Jake chose the Sublette’s Cutoff which traversed the 40 Mile Desert.

A dangerous challenge was crossing the Green River, a north-south barrier to the east-west route of the California-Oregon Trail and a formidable obstacle. Every emigrant had to cross it in some manner.

Once past the Green River to the west, the trail routes became more complicated. John and Jake took the Ham’s Fork route and used a wagon bed to ferry across the Ham’s River.

After leaving the Sublette Cutoff, and before starting on the Hudspeth Cutoff at Soda Springs, Idaho, John and Jake, passed many places with interesting names like Thomas Fork, Big Hill, and Pegleg Smith’s Trading Post.

Traveling on the Fort Hall Road (the more established California-Oregon Trail route), or traveling on Hudspeth’s Cutoff took about the same amount of time as the emigrants eventually discovered.

The Raft River is usually dry for much of the year since it exists only for runoff from snow-melt. They are traveling across very difficult terrain between the eastern edge of the Great Basin and to the west of the Great Salt Lake.

The “Mary’s”, or the “Humboldt River”, is the 4th largest river in the west with no outlet to the ocean. In fact, it eventually disappears into the ground at the Humboldt Sink in the Great Basin.

John and Jake are in the area of the American West called the Great Basin. It is an area generally bounded on the east by the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, and on the west by the Sierra Nevada and the Cascade Mountains.

John and Jake have just crossed the Humboldt River probably a few miles to the west of today’s Wells, Nevada, and he makes his last diary entry in an angry outburst.