By STEVE CHRISTENSEN
Contributing Writer
Utah is a unique place. You already knew that, but I’m betting there are things about Utah you don’t know and there are historic places you haven’t visited.
Over the next several months I will take you on an arm-chair tour of some of these places, including two national conservation areas, two national recreation areas, three national wildlife refuges, ten national monuments/historic sites, and four national historic trails.
National conservation areas are Beaver Dam and Red Cliffs.
National Recreation areas include Flaming Gorge and Glen Canyon.
The national wildlife refuges in Utah are Bear River, Fish Springs, and Ouray.
The national monuments and historic sites include Grand Staircase-Escalante, Bears Ears, Cedar Breaks, Dinosaur, Natural Bridges, Golden Spike, Hovenweep, Glen Canyon, Rainbow Bridge, and Timpanogos Cave.
National historic trails include Old Spanish, Pony Express, California, and Mormon Pioneer.
In addition to these places, there are five national parks in Utah. I’ve already written about four. Someday I’ll get around to doing an article on Canyonlands National Park.
Since it’s very difficult to physically follow (impossible for me) all the national historic trails, I will tell you what my research has revealed.
Crossroads of the West
Utah in historic terms is often referred to as the “Crossroads of the West.” With the Great Basin sitting to the west of the area inhabited in Utah, it was a daunting thought to go on. Many people didn’t, but rather chose to stop in Utah. That is the case with Mormon Pioneers, who chose to make Utah their home after fleeing religious persecution in the east.
Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail
This is the story of the trail and the journeys of the people who made the 1300-mile journey from Nauvoo, Illinois to Salt Lake City in the 1840s. The story is told in a guide published by the National Park Service called National Historic Trails Auto Tour Route Interpretive Guide. The guide is available for download at www.nps.gov or you can get a printed copy by calling the National Park Service at 801-741-1012.
The first wagon trains left civilization for California in 1941. It was a daunting trip. There were no roads, trails, or makers, and they had no maps. To people of our generation it seems like an impossible trip. In fact, for us it probably would be. We are used to getting on an airplane in Salt Lake City and landing in Chicago two hours later. Those first trips took months. Sometimes many months. Some expeditions met with disaster. The worst might have been the Donner Party. Most people know of that story where people were stranded by winter in the Sierra-Nevada Mountains and were reduced to eating human flesh to survive.
The first Mormon wagon trains arrived in Utah in 1847, thus the Days of ‘47 celebration held each summer. Brigham Young decried the Salt Lake Valley as, “This is the Place.” Today a park operated by the Mormon Church in Immigration Canyon celebrates this event.
California National Historic Trail
There is little difference between the Pioneer Trail and the California Trail until it reaches Utah. After all, a person couldn’t get to California in the 1840s and 50s without passing through Utah. You still can’t unless you go far south, nearly to the Mexico border.
From Utah to California, as the Donner Party found, was a cruel trek. There was no good route. The best route was extremely difficult. Today we go south on U.S. Highway 10, get on Interstate 70 which merges with Interstate 15 and there’s not even a stop sign all the way to California. That was not the case in 1850. Wagons could barely get through the sagebrush, bogged down in wet areas, and the were faced with canyons that defy passage. And yet they did it. Somehow they did it.
Wagon traffic on the California Trail peaked in 1857, but dropped dramatically in 1858 due to the Utah War. Concerns over being caught between the United States military and the Mormons in Utah stopped many people from making the trek west.
Between 1841 and 1869 over 250,000 people made the journey from Missouri to California. The trip became somewhat easier as time went on. Trails and maps were developed and in one case a new route was found, shortening the route by 280 miles and 10 days. Today California is the most populous state in the United States with nearly 39 million people. All 39 million owe it to those first dedicated people who inched their way over impossible terrain to get to the West Coast.
The California Trail Interpretive Center in Elko, Nevada is dedicated to that arduous journey.
Wagon traffic nearly ended in 1869 by completion of the transcontinental railroad.
Pony Express National Historic Trail
Numerous books and movies have been made about the Pony Express. Everyone knows the legend. What you may not know is that the Pony Express only lasted 19 months. It was made obsolete by the completion of the transcontinental telegraph in 1861.
Before the Pony Express it took months for a letter to reach the west coast. The Pony Express shortened that time to 10 days. Of course the telegraph made communication almost immediate and today you can make a phone call from nearly anywhere.
Traces of the trail continue to exist, but most of the route has been transplanted by modern highways. There is a museum in St. Joseph, Missouri dedicated to preserving the history of the Pony Express.
Old Spanish National Historic Trail
The other three trails mentioned here traverse the country east to west and existed over a relatively short time (1841-1869). The Old Spanish Trail is a trade route that runs from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Los Angeles, California. The first Spanish explorers used portions of the trail as early as the 16th century.
The trail is actually a series of trails connecting Southwest Colorado and Southeast Utah with Santa Fe and Los Angeles. There are portions of the trail as far north as the San Rafael Desert.
The route was very difficult. In fact, it has been called the “most arduous” trade route ever developed. It was mostly used for trains of pack mules, although it was also used for illicit purposes, such as stealing horses and slave trade.
Walkara, a Ute chief, is notorious for stealing hundreds, if not thousands of horses from ranches in California. He herded those horses along the Spanish Trail to locations in New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah.
Mexican traders and Indian raiding parties kidnapped Indian slaves and sold them into slavery in Mexico.
The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe may be considered the home of the Old Spanish Trail. The Palace was built in 1610 and is the oldest continuously occupied governmental building in the United States. Today, the palace is a National Historic Landmark and a museum.