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Photo: Podruznik |
| Scotts Bluff in Nebraska was a landmark on the Oregon Trail. |
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Group tours retrace pioneers' paths along historic trails
Across the West,
© 2012 Group Tour Media
January 17, 2012
The first roads in the western United States were not roads at all.
Native Americans, explorers, traders, fortune-seekers and settlers traversed trails. Now, group tours explore these same paths with minds on their predecessors’ resolve and ambition.
Development of farms, cities and highways over the course of a century and half has forever changed the landscapes around western trails.
Still, vast portions of the trails’ terrain remain unchanged since the early days. While touring the routes, today’s travelers are able to capture a bit of the romance and adventure of the trails. With the help of guides and interpretive centers, they can understand the hardships of the journey and reasons why people made the trek.
Lewis & Clark
Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were some of the first U.S. citizens to encounter the environment and Native peoples of the west.
The men led an expedition from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean and back between May 1804 and September 1806.
Stretching across 11 states and covering more than 3,700 miles, the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail encompasses more than 100 sites.
The North Dakota Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, N.D., provides an overview of the Lewis and Clark expedition, with special emphasis on the time spent at Fort Mandan during the winter of 1804–1805.
A full-size replica of Fort Mandan, two miles west of the center, depicts the equipping of the expedition for the push to the Pacific Ocean. On-site interpreters provide programs and year-round guided group tours.
In Great Falls, Mont., the United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service has operated the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center since 1998.
The center overlooks the Missouri River, which the explorers followed on their journey from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.
Movies, exhibits and ranger programs bring alive the spirit of exploration epitomized by the Corps of Discovery. A two-story diorama of the expedition’s portage of the Missouri River’s five great falls is the centerpiece of the exhibit hall.
Trails lead to scenic overlooks, and signs point out the significance of landscape and wildlife for the expedition’s time in Montana.
Group reservations are required.
Units of Lewis and Clark National Historical Park are located in Washington and Oregon. Fort Clatsop, in Oregon, includes a replica of the group’s winter encampment from December 1805 to March 1806. An interpretive center offers an exhibit hall, gift shop and two films. The site has ranger-led programs, costumed rangers in the fort and trailheads for the Fort To Sea Trail and Netul River Trail.
On the trip back to St. Louis, Clark carved his name in a sandstone rock outcrop near modern-day Billings, Mont. The signature is still visible on Pompeys Pillar. A boardwalk leads to the signature and continues to the top of the mesa. The boardwalk is approximately 1,000 feet long and contains about 200 steps.
An interpretive center at Pompeys Pillar National Monument opened in 2006. Although the monument is closed in the winter, group tours may still include the site during daylight hours.
Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail was a 2,000-mile route west from Missouri, through the Rocky Mountains to a new life in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
For the first eight decades of the 19th century, the Oregon Trail was the major corridor through which people moved from the eastern United States to the West Coast. As many as 300,000 made the five-month journey, although no one kept exact numbers.
With a little imagination, group members can feel the elation of emigrants at seeing Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff in Nebraska. A third of the journey was behind them. But they faced more challenging terrain, swift rivers to cross, increasingly scarce water and food to find, clouds of dust, miles of shadeless trails and the daily routine of making and breaking camp.
The Ethel and Christopher J. Abbott Visitor Center at Chimney Rock National Historic Site in Bayard, Neb., houses museum exhibits and a video presentation that tells about the great migration to the West.
At Scotts Bluff National Monument in Gering, Neb., viewing exhibits in the museum and hiking the trails are the most popular activities.
A trail to California branched off the Oregon Trail in what is now southern Idaho.
The National Oregon/California Trail Center in Montpelier, Idaho, uses live actors within historically accurate interpretive areas to tell the story of the pioneers who made the trip. Visitors join a simulated wagon train headed west and experience what it was like to prepare for the journey.
The center’s Scenic Trails Chuck Wagon is a themed meal available only for group reservations. Wagon-style booths convey the feeling of an evening meal at sunset.
A must-see location on the trail is the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center near Baker City, Ore. The center, operated by the Bureau of Land Management, opened in 1992.
At least one hour is recommended for the self-guided tour of the exhibits, which cover pioneer life on the Oregon Trail, mountain men and early trail travelers, Native Americans along the trail, natural history along the trail and in eastern Oregon, mining and early settlement and the history of the General Land Office, Grazing Service and Bureau of Land Management.
Outside are 4.2 miles of interpretive trails. For a group walk to the wagon ruts, plan an additional one hour and 45 minutes round-trip.
The center’s volunteer group, Trail Tenders, can put together additional guided tours and activities for groups.
In Casper, Wyo., the National Historic Trails Interpretive Center commemorates the Oregon, Mormon, California and Pony Express trails. The center is a partnership involving the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Land Management, the National Historic Trails Center Foundation and the City of Casper.
Mormon migration
The Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail runs from Nauvoo, Ill., to Salt Lake City and parallels much of the Oregon Trail. Mormons used the trail from 1846 to 1869 to escape religious persecution.
In Omaha, Neb., The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints operates the Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters.
At Fort Bridger State Historic Site in Fort Bridger, Wyo., the main Oregon-California trail turned north toward Fort Hall, while the Mormon Trail/Hastings Cutoff continued west to the Great Salt Lake.
Groups can visit the fort’s museum/visitor center and a reconstruction of Jim Bridger’s log trading post.
Although Mormon emigrants used wagons, from 1856–1860, several groups carried their belongings in handcarts.
The Mormon Handcart Visitors’ Center in Martin’s Cove, Wyo., relates the story of the handcart emigrants and the hardships they endured.
Santa Fe Trail
The Santa Fe Trail was primarily a commercial highway connecting Missouri and Santa Fe, N.M.
From 1821 until 1846, it was an international commercial highway used by Mexican and U.S. traders, as Santa Fe was then part of Mexico. After the end of the Mexican-American War in 1848, the trail became a domestic commercial trade route, and trade and military freight boomed. The trail was used until 1880, when the railroad arrived in Santa Fe.
Scores of museums, interpretive centers and historic sites in five states provide information on the trail.
Council Grove, Kan., for example, boasts 11 certified sites on the trail, including Last Chance Store. The store was, for a time, the last opportunity for freighters bound for Santa Fe to secure supplies for their journey.
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Photo: Roger M. Peterson |
| Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrendered at Bear Paw Battlefield near Chinook, Mont. |
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Native trails
In the late 1830s, more than 16,000 Cherokee men, women, and children were forcibly removed from their homes in the eastern U.S. to stockades and internment camps, after which they walked hundreds of miles to Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma).
The Trail of Tears National Historic Trail was designated to preserve the story and routes and to support the associated sites that commemorate the Cherokees’ forced migration.
Exhibits in the Cherokee National Museum in Tahlequah, Okla., part of the Cherokee Heritage Center, interpret the Trail of Tears.
The Nez Perce (Nee-Me-Poo) National Historic Trail commemorates the 1877 Nez Perce War and extends about 1,170 miles from the vicinity of Wallowa Lake, Ore., to Bear Paw Battlefield near Chinook, Mont.
The 1877 flight of the Nez Perce from their homelands while pursued by the U.S. Army has been called one of the most fascinating and sorrowful events in western U.S. history.
Chief Joseph, Chief Looking Glass, Chief White Bird, Chief Ollokot, Chief Lean Elk and others led nearly 750 Nez Perce men, women and children and twice that many horses more than 1,170 miles through the mountains, on a trip that lasted from June to October of 1877.
Visitor and interpretive centers along the trail include the Missouri Breaks Interpretive Center in Fort Benton, Mont., and the Lolo Pass Visitor Center near the Montana-Idaho border.
North Dakota Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center
(877) 462-8535
www.fortmandan.com
Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive Center
(406) 727-8733
www.fs.fed.us/r1/lewisclark/lcic
Lewis and Clark National Historical Park
(503) 861-2471
www.nps.gov/lewi/index.htm
Pompeys Pillar Interpretive Center
(406) 875-2400
www.pompeyspillar.org
Chimney Rock National Historic Site
(308) 586-2581
www.nps.gov/chro
Scotts Bluff National Monument
(308) 436-9700
www.nps.gov/scbl
Cherokee Heritage Center
(888) 999-6007
www.cherokeeheritage.org
National Oregon/California Trail Center
(866) 847-3800
www.oregontrailcenter.org
National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center
(541) 523-1843
www.blm.gov/or/oregontrail
Mormon Trail Center at Historic Winter Quarters
(402) 453-9372
http://lds.org/placestovisit/eng/historical-sites/mormon-trail-center-at-historic-winter-quarters
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