Day 7 - Soda Springs ID to Twin Falls ID

Table of Contents

	Google Map Track Log
	YouTube Video
	Not A Walk In The Park, Soda Springs ID
	It Roars Like a Mad Dragon, Soda Springs ID
	Ruts, Swales and Traces, Soda Springs ID
	Hudspeth Cutoff, Soda Springs ID
	California dreaming in 1841, Grace ID
	Oregon Trail, American Falls ID
	Raft River Parting of the Ways Trail Segment (A-20)
	Elevation Changes During the Day
	Comments
	Other Blogs About This Trip

Google Map Track Log

YouTube Video

Not A Walk In The Park, Soda Springs ID

Historical Marker

The story of the American West is not simply a tale of pioneer courage and vision or of prairie schooners swaying westward to the strains of heroic music. Rather, it is a complex story of plots and sub plots, of romance and religion, of politics and money, and of personal and national tragedy.

Many emigrants were thrilled by both a new sense of freedom and the unknown dangers that lay ahead. Most however, lived in fear of Indian attack. Rumors of - even hoaxes about - trail side massacres drifted back to Eastern newspapers, and many travelers packed a virtual arsenal to protect themselves on the road.

Native Americans harbored hopes and fears too, as they watched the swelling tide of foreign humanity and hungry livestock surge into their country. For the most part, emigrants fears were unfounded. Historians conclude that more Indian people that emigrants were killed in clashes along the Oregon and California trails. A greater menace to travelers were so-called "white Indians," bands of vicious outlaws -- sometimes disguised as native warriors who stalked and plundered emigrant parties.

Not far from here in 1861, a tragedy took the lives of an entire emigrant family. Three trappers discovered their remains. Although there were no eyewitnesses of the killings, the trappers learn that when the wagon train pulled out the family had stayed behind to locate and retrieve their horses, which had wandered off in the night before. The bodies were placed together in their wagon box and buried on the spot. Their remains were later moved to the cemetery. As you explore the historic trains through southern Idaho, traces of emigrant stories can still be found on the landscape and in recorded journals and diaries that helped them through each trying day.

It Roars Like a Mad Dragon, Soda Springs ID

Historical Marker

Many Oregon & California bound emigrants mention seeing ten to twelve foot hight white mounds and cones in their diaries and journals while passing through the Soda Springs area in the mid-1800s. Often, one of the first natural curiosities that they encountered was Pyramid Spring.

In the 1937, several local businessmen attempted to find and divert hot water from Pyramid Spring to develop a commercial bathhouse and health resort. On November 28th, at a depth of 315 feet, their hopes and dreams seemed within reach. The drilling rig struck a gas chamber, and shortly after drilling ceased for the day hot water began gushing upward more than forty feet. The next day, after the 3500 pound bit was removed, the ground shook as if it were about to split open and a roaring gusher of more than 70 feet streamed upward from the valve. After several days, the hissing hot water began to cool and become laden with mineral content (hard water), rendering it undesirable for use as a bathhouse. Two weeks later the drilling riggers were able to finally cap the gusher.

The hordes of tourists that the businessmen anticipated, never came. But the geyser did attract attention. Within weeks, the Secretary of the Interior sent a telegram to Soda Springs asking the City to turn off the geyser because "...it is throwing the world famous 'Old Faithful Geyser' of schedule." Today, Soda Springs' Captive Geyser has a timer on the valve that permits it to erupt every hour on the hour throughout the year.

Ruts, Swales and Traces, Soda Springs ID

Historical Marker

Ruts, Swales and Traces

As many as 350,000 people and tens of thousands of covered wagons traveled the Oregon Trail between 1840 and 1870. Countless feet, hooves, and iron-rimmed wheels cut and compacted the ground, leaving long-lasting traces still visible on many western landscapes.

Emigrants preferred sturdy farm wagons, roughly half the size of a Conestoga to carry what possessions and supplies would fit. The wagon box was about four feet wide, three feet deep, and 10 to 12 feet long. The covered box sat over two pairs of wheels of different sizes: front wheels about 44 inches in diameter, and rear wheels about 50 inches in diameter.

The narrow iron rims on the wheels, pressed into the earth by the weight of the wagon and its 1600 to 1800 pound load, left a visible legacy across the landscape. In places, faint two-track depressions provide evidence where wagons once rolled across mostly level ground.

Elsewhere are deeper depressions with sloping sides, called swales. Swales are often found on slopes and at the crest of hills, where the oxen dug in their hooves and strained to pull their heavy load.

In wide open places, visitors to the old Oregon Trail might see two, three or more side-by-side lines of depressions, swales, ruts, tracks, or scars. These multiple traces created wherever wagons could spread out across the landscape to pass other parties or just to escape the choking dust kicked up by those ahead.

Constructing a Wagon Wheel

The best wheels were made of well-seasoned, durable hardwoods such as white oak or Osage orange. The wooden rim, or "felloes," could be made by steaming or bending wood to form a circle. The wheelwright selected an iron hoop somewhat smaller that the wooden wheel and heated it in a large forge. As it heated, the hoop expanded. The hot band of iron was hammered snugly around the rim and set aside to cool and shrink. The powerful grip of the finished iron tire held the wheel securely together and protected it from rocks, grinding sand, and other hazards of the road.

Hudspeth Cutoff, Soda Springs ID

Historical Marker

Hudspeth Cutoff

Native Americans traveled and camped in the Soda Springs area for centuries before emigrants traveled the Oregon Trail.

Sheep Rock (Soda Point) marked the junction of the main route of the Oregon-California Trail and the Hudspeth Cutoff and was often mentioned in emigrant diaries. The Hudspeth Cutoff diverged 3/4 mile west of here, striking west across the lava-covered valley. Its route passed over Fish Creek divide and the Portneuf Range south of Lava Hot Springs. Its western terminus was the City of Rocks, where it rejoined the California Trail. From Sheep Rock, the main branch of the Oregon-California Trail headed northwest toward Fort Hall.

On July 19, 1849, Benoni Morgan Hudspeth, captain of a wagon train with 70 wagons and 250 people, led his group west along what was to become the Hudspeth Cutoff. With John Meyers as guide, they opened a new wagon route to California shortening the northern and more established route north to Fort Hall. Hudspeth and Meyers has scouted the area prior to crossing. Hudspeth was familiar with the area since he had been with John C. Fremont on his 1843 expedition to the Great Salt Lake area.

Departing from the established road, they proceeded due west over the mountains rather than around them. This new 132-mile route jointed the California Train to the west of the Raft River. Spurred by the Gold Rush of 1849, afterward most California-bound traffic went over the cutoff due to abundance of forage for their animals.

"Four miles from Steamboat Springs we came to old crater Alexander Crater and the junction of the Fort Hall road and Hudspethw's Cutoff. At this point, Bear River which has run nearly north for 150 miles or more bends, short around the mountain and runs back nearly parallel with its former course. The Fort Hall road runs to the right and runs along under the bluff, and Hudspeth's Cutoff continues nearly straight ahead towards the opposite mountains." -- Lorenzo Sawyer, 1849

Historical Marker

Guiding Landmark, Sheep Rock

Towering 1200 feet above the waters of Bear River is Sheep Rock, a prominent landmark described in emigrant diaries and journals as they traveled west on the Oregon and California trails. Trapper and mountain men, in the early 1830s, indicate that a sizable flock of bighorn mountain sheep occupied its forested, rocky ridge throughout the year. Modern-day maps identified this feature as Soda Point. - the northern end of the Wasatch Mountain Range that tower above the Great Salt Lake Valley.

The Bear River flows north out of Utah's Uinta Mountains into southwestern Wyoming where it continues toward Soda Point and them makes a sweeping turn to the south, flowing back to Utah and into the Great Salt Lake. Its relatively level valleys provide Oregon and California bound emigrants with a good road surface as they made their way towards the Hudson's Bay Company trading post at Fort Hall. A short distance west from Soda Springs the trail divides. Oregon bound wagons headed northwest to Fort Hall, and Californians turned west along the Hudspeth Cutoff toward the Humboldt River in northern Nevada.

In early August 1841, thirty-nine members of the Bidwell-Bartleson wagon party followed the Bear south to the Great Salt Lake before turning west through the desert to connect with the Humboldt and were finally forced to abandon their wagons in Utah's west desert. Four months later, all 39 members - tired and starving - finally made it to California.

Elisha Douglass Perkins (August 8, 1849)
" Crossing the plain some 4 miles from the spring we camped in the bend of Bear River where it turns to the South. We were on an Elevated plain, on the opposite side of the River was a huge precipitous mountain & the River ran between its base & a ledge of rocks forming the boundary of the plain some 75 or 100 feet high. Our animals could not get to water at all & we were obliged to scramble up the ledge with a bucket apiece for our own use."

John C. Fremont (August 25, 1843)
"In sweeping around the point of the mountain which runs down into the bend, the river here passes between perpendicular walls of basalt, which always fix the attention, from the regular form in which it occurs, and its perfect distinctness from the surrounding rocks among which it has been placed. The mountain, which is rugged and steep, and by our measurement, 1,400 feet above the river directly opposite the place of our halt, is called Sheep rock - probably because a flock of the common mountain sheep (ovis montana) had been seen on the craggy point."

California dreaming in 1841, Grace ID

Historical Marker

California dreaming in 1841

The Bidwell-Bartleson Party

In 1841, John Bidwell and John Bartleson became the first Americans emigrants to undertake a wagon crossing from Missouri to California.

Although Oregon was the primary destination of early westward-bound pioneers, new and enticing stories of California's warm weather and an absence of blizzards and tornadoes were attracting attention.

A party divided

Near Sheep Rock, Idaho, the party divided. One-half of the group of 69 men, women, and children decided to continue on the more-traveled Oregon Trail route. The remaining intrepid members of the Bidwell-Bartleson Party turned south to Utah and the Great Salt Lake, continued west to Nevada, finally arriving in California.

Bound for California without a map

"Our ignorance of the route was complete" admitted John Bidwell years later in his trip memoir.

Fortunately, a group of Jesuit missionaries also traveling west and guided by mountain man Thomas Fitzpatrick (1799-1854) agreed to join with the Bidwell-Bartleson Party. It was a fateful decision.

Bidwell recalled, "At first we were independent and fought we could not afford to wait for a slow missionary party. But when we found that no one knew which way to go, we sobered down and waited for them to come up; and it was well we did, for otherwise probably not one of us would ever have reached California because of our inexperience.

Oregon Trail, American Falls ID

Historical Marker

Oregon Trail

Immediately west of here you will cross a small canyon that Oregon Trail emigrants regarded as their most dangerous exposure to Indians.

After 1854, they had good reason to be alarmed. Wagon traffic has ruined important traditional Indian trails. Uncounted thousand of oxen, horses, sheep, and cattle had overgrazed a broad zone along their trail, leading to Indian resentment. Worse yet, a few emigrants has shot enough Indians to provoke a great deal of bitterness. Aug. 9, 1862, Pocatello's Shoshoni band resisted further wagon traffic here trapping a small emigrant party in a deep gully. An unusually fine stretch of wagon tracks leading to that site can be reached by a marked trail from here.

Raft River Parting of the Ways Trail Segment (A-20)

Raft River Parting of the Ways Trail Segment.

The Bureau of Land Management has kept this 7-mile segment of original wagon trail looking much as it did during the covered wagon days. Explore the ruts on foot or horseback; motorized vehicles are not permitted. The actual parting of the ways junction is on adjacent private property. Please do not trespass.

Elevation Changes During the Day