The Great Platte River Road through Nebraska and Wyoming was the grand corridor of America's westward expansion. A number of famous trails converged in the broad valley of the Platte, forming a kind of primitive superhighway for the great covered wagon migration from 1841 to 1866. From jumping-off places along the Missouri River?notably the Omaha-Council Bluffs, St. Joseph, and Kansas City areas?the emigrant throngs came together at Fort Kearny, Nebraska. Although they continued on to South Pass, Wyoming, and beyond, this book focuses on the feeder mutes and the more than three hundred miles between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie. The Great Platte River Road looks at border towns, trail routes, river crossings, stage stations, military posts, and such landmarks as Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff. It goes far beyond geography and Indian encounters in revealing cultural aspects of the great migration: food, dress, equipment, organization, camping, traffic patterns, sex ratios, morals, manners, religion, crime, accidents, disease, death, and burial customs.
During the years of the Indian uprisings in the West, Elizabeth Burt followed her husband, Major Andrew Burt, from one lonely outpost to another, with their three small children, a crate of chickens, and a cow in tow. Indians, Infants, and Infantry, based largely on a 1912 manuscript Mrs. Burt derived from now-lostøletters and diaries, provides an intimate glimpse of life at Forts Kearney, Bridger, Laramie, and C. F. Smith from the 1860s through the 1890s. Historical events do not dwarf but only heighten the half-century love affair of a remarkable woman and a soldier whose distinguished career stretched from the Civil to the Spanish-American war. In addition to Mrs. Burt's manuscripts, Merrill J. Mattes drew on army records and other primary sources.
Describes the early exploration of Scotts Bluff by fur traders and the events that led to the establishment of the Scotts Bluff National Monument in Nebraska. Also includes a guide to the area and suggested readings.
The Great Platte River Road through Nebraska and Wyoming was the grand corridor of America's westward expansion. A number of famous trails converged in the broad valley of the Platte, forming a kind of primitive superhighway for the great covered wagon migration from 1841 to 1866. From jumping-off places along the Missouri River?notably the Omaha-Council Bluffs, St. Joseph, and Kansas City areas?the emigrant throngs came together at Fort Kearny, Nebraska. Although they continued on to South Pass, Wyoming, and beyond, this book focuses on the feeder mutes and the more than three hundred miles between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie. The Great Platte River Road looks at border towns, trail routes, river crossings, stage stations, military posts, and such landmarks as Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff. It goes far beyond geography and Indian encounters in revealing cultural aspects of the great migration: food, dress, equipment, organization, camping, traffic patterns, sex ratios, morals, manners, religion, crime, accidents, disease, death, and burial customs.
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