Trail Dust Newsletter of the Oregon-California Trails Association, Idaho Chapter

Transcription

1 Trail Dust Newsletter of the Oregon-California Trails Association, Idaho Chapter Vol. XXIX Issue 2 Nancy Briggs, Editor, Aug 2017 Contents Calendar for Message from the President 2 Soda Springs to Fort Hall Tour 3 Council Bluffs National Convention 5 Diaries Across Idaho 7 Calendar for 2017 Sept 16 th 2017 Sept 29 th 30 th 2017 Oct 7 th 2017 Oct 27 th 28 th 2017 California Trail, Raft River to City of Rocks Osher Institute lecture and tour Idaho Chapter Fall Meeting and Tour Osher Institute lecture and tour 1 P a g e

2 Message from the President By Jerry Eichhorst The annual Spring Byway tour was a lot of fun with many of the people experiencing the Oregon Trail for the first time. A lively spring chapter meeting in May was attended by 25 people. An outing after lunch focused on using cadaver dogs to verify the 2 gravesites in the Raft River valley near Parting of the Ways. I did a presentation on the Oregon Trail in Ada County to the Ada County Historical Preservation Committee. The hope is that they will work with IOCTA to preserve the remaining trail segments in the county. I proposed adding trail signage between Bonneville Point and the Ada County Trailhead site on Highway 21 and restrooms at each end. It will be interesting to see if anything happens. An outing of Oregon-California Trail sites in the Soda Springs area in early July was attended by 10 people. The following day, 13 people participated in a tour of the Oregon-California Trail over the Fort Hall reservation. As always, it was a hot, dusty trip. Because of the heavy snowfall over the winter, there was still snow on the mountain tops and water was flowing through normally dry drainages and across the trail in places. I will be conducting a presentation of the Emigrant Trails in Idaho in mid-august to a senior living center and teaching 2 Osher Lifetime Learning Institute classes with full-day bus tours in September and October. Also planned is a tour of the beginning of the California Trail in September and the fall chapter meeting in October at AJ s Restaurant in Mountain Home. Be sure to check the calendar page on the website, for more information. In spite of the number of activities going on, I believe the chapter is still recovering from hosting the convention a year ago in Fort Hall. The convention required so much work of the chapter members for so long that I think many are burned out and not as eager to participate in activities this year. We saw a similar reaction in 2009 after hosting the 2008 convention in Nampa. At the spring Board of Directors meeting in Vancouver, I committed the Idaho chapter to hosting the 2040 convention, so I expect we will see a similar problem again in The restoration of the Canyon Creek Stage Station by the BLM is progressing at a rapid pace. The front wall has been rebuilt this year and the beams supporting the floor for the upstairs are installed. The chapter will visit the station after the fall meeting in October. Finally, the search for the Goodale s Cutoff massacre burial site suspected to be on Ditto Creek has been disappointing this year. An archaeological dig involving 15 test holes in the area has failed to turn up human remains. The search will continue in the fall when the weather is cooler.. 2 P a g e

3 Soda Springs to Fort Hall Tours By Jerry Eichhorst Saturday, July 8, dawned sunny and clear. It was going to be hot for eastern Idaho, with the forecast high temperature near 100. We met at the Flying J truck stop in McCammon and headed east on a tour of the Oregon Trail sites in the Soda Springs area. Ten people were joining me, half of them guests. There are a great number of interesting sites in the Soda Springs area; many are trail related, others just interesting features of nature. This was a 2-day version of the convention 1-long-day pre-tour of last year. Springs site where the Oregon Trail crossed Soda Creek. The area is littered with the remains of hundreds of springs which once bubbled from the ground and were noted by many emigrant travelers. The area also contains deep ruts of the trail after it crossed the creek. We continued on to watch the man-made geyser at Pyramid Park and the remnants of the Pyramid Springs noted by Narcissa Whitman before heading east to Sulphur Spring. Much like the sulphur pools in Yellowstone Park, sulphur gas bubbles to the surface of the pools in this area. After lunch in the city park, we visited Fountain Springs, an area of ancient pools with a clear stream running through a nature preserve. The day was getting hot and I wished I could jump in the clear water of the stream. IOCTA visitors along the trail in Soda Springs area. Original Soda Springs area showing white residue from springs. Formation Springs meadow pool and stream. After stopping on the top of the hill to give an overview of the area spreading before us, our next stop was the original Soda Sulphur bubbles at Sulphur Spring. 3 P a g e

4 We visited Hooper Spring, wagon box grave, DeSmet monument, golf course ruts, Soda Springs, Sheep Rock, and Soda Pool in the afternoon before returning to Pocatello and our hotels. We met again at the truck stop the next day and took the scenic route along the old highway to Chesterfield, an old Mormon settlement which is being restored. Group in Chesterfield before crossing the reservation. Photo by Jere Dunne. Big Spring The drive across the reservation was extremely dusty and long. Most of the time you could not see the vehicle in front of you due to the thick dust. The emigrants endured the same conditions. Because of the heavy snowfall this past winter, water was running in many drainages which are normally dry. Most of us then hit the interstate for the 3+ hour drive to Boise. It was a busy and fun weekend. Being a Sunday, the town was closed for business. It was going to be hot again and very dusty. Leo Ariwite, our Shoshone guide, met us and we started our tour across the Fort Hall Indian Reservation along the Oregon Trail to the original Fort Hall site. This route is not frequently traveled by non-tribal people as it requires arranging for a tribal guide to have access to the reservation. Along the way we stopped and enjoyed the wonderful water of the spring which is the headwaters of Ross Fork and lunched at Big Spring. We stopped at the Shoshone-Bannock Hotel for a restroom break before continuing west to the Fort Hall site. Being at the hotel brought back memories of the OCTA convention held there only 11 months before. Original Fort Hall site monument buried by tall grass. The area had been mowed for the convention last year. 4 P a g e

5 OCTA Annual Convention, Council Bluffs, Aug 6 th 12 th, 2017 By John and Nancy Briggs The 2017 Convention was held at the Ameristar in Council Bluffs, Iowa with the theme Gateway to the Great Platte River Road. Why Council Bluffs when there is no chapter of OCTA there? The Startling Fact, courtesy of Merrill J Mattes, is that, while Independence was the number one jumping off point in the 1840 s, Council Bluffs became number one for all migration during the period 1852 to The shorter, more direct route, the steamboat ferry in later years and the proximity to Illinois, source for the greatest number of migrants, account for this. Additionally, from 1850 on, migrants were able to stay on the North side of the Platte all the way through Fort Laramie and Casper and all the way to the Sweetwater and South Pass. A major advantage of this route was that it avoided all major river crossings except for one, the Loup. Lewis and Clark also passed through this area and their activities were featured in the Tours and lectures the opening day. Kira Gale spoke to Astonishing Facts of Lewis and Clark most surprising of which was her well supported argument that General James Wilkinson was responsible for the assassination of Meriwether Lewis! Paula and Doug Davina spent some time with Kira afterwards discussing the Trail Guidance Software she uses, tourappbuilder.com, and compared it with GyPSy with which they were already familiar. This software is something we may be able to use to create GPS tours of the Trail in Idaho. Mark Kelly Spoke to Lost Voices on the Missouri: John Dougherty and the Indian Frontier. Dougherty was a significant contributor to the opening of the upper Missouri working with men such as John Colter and Andrew Henry. Dean Knudsen spoke of the steamship Bertrand which was wrecked in 1865, reclaimed and then almost lost again in Carl Scott took us through Gail Holmes paper on Mormon Pioneer Trails through SW Iowa. Harlan Seyfer s detective work on who was the first Euro-American to reach the Platte considered potential Spanish and French candidates before settling on Etienne de Veniard, Sieur de Bourgmont in Lewis and Clark Camp White Catfish at Council Bluffs The first presentation came from the Pawnee Nation. Chief Matt Reed explained that there were four bands of Pawnee: the Chaui, Kitkehahki, Pitahawirata and Skidi. Their history, songs and prayers were a highlight of OCTA s John Krizek was then finally able to give his talk on the Stephens-Townsend- Murphy and Thorp-Hammer Parties who began their migrations in The remaining four Friday presentations all concerned railroads and automobiles. Patricia 5 P a g e

6 LaBounty took us through the building of the first Transcontinental Railway. Frank Norris looked at the impact of the Transcontinental railroad on the Overland Trails with the biggest impact on the Mormon migrants. Lee Whitely talked about the 1909 Glidden or AAA Reliability Tour and Janice Gammon discussed the Lincoln Highway. Wednesday Evening Missouri River Cruise Dorothy and Russell Smerz with John and Nancy Briggs. Paula and Doug Davina attended as did other long time Idaho members Jim and Cathy Blair Green and Jenny Miller. Tours included - Railroads, Highways, Steamboats and Forts - Fort Atkinson at the Council Bluff, NE - - California and Mormon Pioneer Trail in Nebraska - Lewis and Clark in the Loess Hills - The Nebraska City Fort Kearney Cutoff and Oxbow Trail. We took advantage of the long drive to visit a number of Trail linked sites both on the way out and on the return journey. Outbound we stopped at the Oregon- California Trail Center in Montpelier, ID and at Big Hill before an overnight stay at Rock Creek. From Rock Springs we took US 191 to Wyoming 28 over South Pass, stopping at False Parting of the Ways, South Pass overlook and Trail, the Lander Cut-off crossing WY 28, South Pass City and Split Rock (shown left). From Split Rock we went on to the Devil s Gate, Rattlesnake Pass and Independence Rock. On the return we paused at Mud Springs, Chimney Rock, Scott s Bluff, Mitchell Pass, Courthouse Rock and explored the Julesburg Cut-off of the California and Pony Express Trails in Western Nebraska. - Replica Keel Boat at Lewis and Clark State Park - Mormon Pioneer Trail in Iowa Mitchell Pass at Scott s Bluff with Sentinel Rock on the right and Eagle Rock on the left. A long but rewarding road trip! 6 P a g e

7 Diaries Across Idaho By Jerry Eichhorst Volcanic Rifts As the Oregon-California Trail left Sheep Rock and started to the northwest, a number of volcanic rifts were soon encountered. Wide enough to prevent wagons from crossing them, the route needed to work around the crevices. Many travelers commented on these fissures and listened as rocks thrown in the rifts bounced down the side. A few people climbed down into the crevices. [August] 30th. At early dawn, we saddled and moved in silence a few hundred yards down the river, turned to the right around the Bute in the rear of the Steamboat spring, entered the Valley of chasms, This valley derives its name from the numerous cracks or chasms in the volcanic rocks on which it rests. Thomas Jefferson Farnham 1839 [September] Thursday, 7th. The country for miles is full of fissures, very deep, where the rock are rent and thrown into many shapes... John Boardman, 1843 At other places the rock has been rent, and a chasm of thirty or forty feet in depth and from two to ten feet in width, has been the result. These chasms are about one quarter of a mile in length. The fragments lay in every direction. Joel Palmer, August 5, 1845 There were lines of rocky ledges of basalt, miles in length, having wide, continuous cracks in them, and occasionally funnelshaped holes, sometimes quite small, and of which we could not determine the depth; and although we descended fifty feet into one of the chasms, we could not see the bottom. Alonzo Delano, July 14, 1849 Here and there were chasms, fissures and sinkholes dark deep and yawning like the portals of hell. Bernard J. Reid, August 2, 1849 Here the ground is Cracked in Some places wide enough for a buffaloe to fall in as we Saw Severel of their Skeletans Laying Twenty feet down in the Crack and the Lavy is Thrown out all along the Cracks Some of them are more than a mile Long Jonas Hittle, 20th [July] 1849 There is many dangerous fissures or openings, being in some places 3 to 4 feet wide and many feet in depth. At the bottom of some there is water. D. B. Andrews, July 4, P a g e

8 Idaho Chapter OCTA 2908 Whitehaven Place Eagle, ID IOCTA Officers and Directors Jerry Eichhorst President Lyle Lambert VP - East Lyle.lambert@yahoo.com John Briggs VP - West johnxbriggs@msn.com Dan Dunne Treasurer ltcdunne@gmail.com Paul Dinwiddie Secretary pdiny@msn.com Virgel Clark Historian bobc012001@yahoo.com Lyle Lambert Preservation - East Lyle.lambert@yahoo.com Wally Meyer Preservation - West wallywanch@q.com Nancy Briggs TD Editor nancylbriggs@msn.com Jerry Eichhorst Webmaster Dave & Donna Newberry Director donteach@juno.com Dave Taylor Director DTAYLOR466@aol.com Bill Wilson Director runofthemillbill@gmail.com Jim & Dawn Fazio Director jfazio@turbonet.com Lynn and Margie Houdyshell Director houdyshell@cableone.net Visit IOCTA online at