City of Rocks Historic Resources Study

Mountain man and entrepreneur Jim Bridger established the Fort Bridger trading post south of South Pass in 1843. Those who traveled to the fort had the option of cutting north to Fort Hall on the main road — a circuitous and unappealing alternative that added miles to an already-too-long journey — or, by 1846, of following Lansford Hastings' trail across the Bonneville Flats to the main road along the Humboldt. This latter, untenable route fell into disuse following the experience of the Donner party. [54]

By 1848, one year after the Mormon exodus from Nauvoo to the Salt Lake Basin, California emigrants in need of rest and provisions had again diverted in large numbers south from South Pass to the Mormon "half-way house" of Salt Lake City (luxuries included a shave, new eyeglasses, a bed, a good meal). From Salt Lake City, they left behind "civilization, pretty girls, and pleasant memories," and proceeded north along the Salt Lake Alternate. This route was established in 1848 by Samuel Hensley, a member of the 1841 Bartleson Bidwell party, and first traveled by H. W. Bigler's Mormon battalion, returning to Salt Lake City following the Mexican-American War. The route crossed the Bear River approximately one week (80 miles) north of Salt Lake City, cut west northwest across the southeast corner of what is now Idaho, and met the main California Trail at the south "gate" to City of Rocks. The granite monolith christened "Twin Sisters" by a member of the battalion marks this southern entrance. [55]

Mormon emigrants, years behind the 1847 hegira, also followed this alternate, leaving the main California Trail at City of Rocks, and traveling east against the grain to the Salt Lake Basin — the land "that no one else wanted." [56]

In 1849, Benoni M. Hudspeth and John J. Myers blazed a route along an "old Indian trail" running from the big bend of the Bear River (near Soda Springs) to Cassia Creek in the Raft River Valley, thus avoiding the long detour north to Fort Hall and then back along the Raft River toward the City of Rocks. When Hudspeth, Myers, and the large party of Missouri miners that had employed them as guides emerged from the rugged mountains along the east bank of the Raft River (near present-day Malta), they were reportedly "'thunder struck' to find they had not reached the Humboldt at all." [57]

Although the route was exceptionally rugged and passable only to west-bound wagons, it saved 22 miles and a day's travel over the road to Fort Hall. To footworn men and women in a hurry, this savings was considerable. By October of 1849, General P.F. Smith recommended against establishing a permanent United States military post at Fort Hall, noting that much of the emigrant traffic traveled Hudspeth's Cutoff instead (Figure 7). [58]

Figure 7. Emigrant Trails of Southern Idaho (including Alternative Routes along the California Trail). Daniel J. Hutchison, Bureau of Land Management, and Larry R. Jones, Idaho State Historical Society, eds., Emigrant Trails of Southern Idaho, 1994, inside front cover. (click on image for an enlargement in a new window)