John Mullan, Jr. (July 31, 1830 – December 28, 1909) was an American soldier, explorer, civil servant, and road builder, heled the construction crew which built which road, was the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains to the Inland of the Pacific Northwest, in Montana, Idaho, and Washington state, between the spring of 1859 and summer 1860?
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John Mullan (road builder) John Mullan, Jr. (July 31, 1830 – December 28, 1909) was an American soldier, explorer, civil servant, and road builder. After graduating from the United States Military Academy in 1852, he joined the Northern Pacific Railroad Survey, led by Isaac Stevens. He extensively explored western Montana and portions of southeastern Idaho, discovered Mullan Pass, participated in the Coeur d'Alene War, and led the construction crew which built the Mullan Road in Montana, Idaho, and Washington state between the spring of 1859 and summer of 1860.
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Mullan Road Mullan Road was the first wagon road to cross the Rocky Mountains to the Inland of the Pacific Northwest. It was built by U.S. Army troops under the command of Lt. John Mullan, between the spring of 1859 and summer 1860. It led from Fort Benton, which at the time was in the Dakota Territory, then Idaho Territory from July 1863, and Montana Territory beginning in May 1864, and the navigational head of the Missouri River (and once farthest inland port in the world). The road connected to Fort Walla Walla, Washington Territory, near the Columbia River. The road previewed the route approximately followed of modern-day Interstate 15 and Interstate 90 through present-day Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
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Westward Expansion Trails In the American Old West, overland trails were popular means of travel used by pioneers and immigrants throughout the 19th century and especially between 1830 and 1870 as an alternative to sea and railroad transport. These immigrants began to settle various regions of North America west of the Great Plains as part of the mass overland migrations of the mid-19th century. Settlers emigrating from the eastern United States were spurred by various motives, among them religious persecution, economic incentives, and the prospect of new wealth and new freedoms in what was then a largely unspoiled and unregulated country. By the 1840s, several popular and well-established routes had been blazed through the continental interior to destinations in the far west, including the Oregon Trail, California Trail, and Mormon Trail. After the end of the Mexican–American War in 1849, vast new American conquests again enticed mass immigration. Legislation like the Donation Land Claim Act and significant events like the California Gold Rush further lured colonists to travel overland to the west.
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Sourdough Lodge The Sourdough Lodge (originally known as Hart's Road House) was built in Alaska between 1903 and 1905 of logs. It was one of a number of roadhouses built along the Valdez Trail (now known as the Richardson Highway). The roadhouses were about 15 mi apart and offered shelter for travellers and road construction crew. It was designated a National Historic Landmark on June 2, 1978 as it was the oldest continuously-operating roadhouse in Alaska.
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Jesse Applegate Jesse Applegate (July 5, 1811 – April 22, 1888) was an American pioneer who led a large group of settlers along the Oregon Trail to the Oregon Country. He was an influential member of the early government of Oregon, and helped establish the Applegate Trail as an alternative route to the Oregon Trail.
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Empire Express Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad is a book written by David Haward Bain, published in 2000. It follows the initial conception of the idea of a transcontinental railroad, during the two decades before the Civil War, to the work of the engineers and entrepreneurs who fixed the route, assembled financing, drafted a work force and launched the two lines toward the eventual meeting point at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869. The story alternates between the Union Pacific driving west from Omaha and the Central Pacific blasting through the mountains from California.
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James John James John (1809–1886) was founder of the settlement of St. Johns in Oregon. The area later became a city when it passed a charter in 1902. It was annexed into Portland in 1915. John worked as a general store and ferry operator across the Willamette River to Linnton. He once served as Justice of the Peace and was twice an election judge. John was born in Ohio and first settled in Indiana with his wife and child where John worked as an educator. He joined the Bartleson–Bidwell Party in 1841, who were one of the first groups that trekked the California Trail. By this time, John's wife and child had died. He came to Oregon Country in the employment of the Hudson's Bay Company in 1843 after making it to Sacramento Valley.
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Charles S. Drew Charles Stewart Drew (April 2, 1825 – 1890), also known as C.S. Drew, was a representative in the legislature of the Oregon Territory of the United States and quartermaster general of the territorial militia in the 1850s. During the American Civil War, he was a Union Army officer, serving in the 1st Oregon Cavalry regiment. He eventually reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. In 1864, he led an Army reconnaissance party into southeastern Oregon. The expedition, known as the Owyhee Reconnaissance, traveled through uncharted country from Fort Klamath to Fort Boise and back. Drew was the author of two historically important military reports; one documented Indian attacks on American settlers in the Oregon Territory and the other was his report of the Owyhee Reconnaissance.
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Mojave Road The Mojave Road, also known as Old Government Road formerly the Mohave Trail is a historic route and present day dirt road across what is now the Mojave National Preserve in the Mojave Desert in the United States. This rough road stretched 147 mi from Beale's Crossing (the river crossing site on the west bank of the Colorado River, opposite old Fort Mohave, roughly 10 mi southwest of Bullhead City, Arizona), to Fork of the Road location along the north bank of the Mojave River where the old Mojave Road split off from the route of the Old Spanish Trail/Mormon Road.
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John C. Frémont John Charles Frémont or Fremont (January 21, 1813July 13, 1890) was an American explorer, politician, and soldier who, in 1856, became the first candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party for the office of President of the United States. During the 1840s, when he led four expeditions into the American West, that era's penny press and admiring historians accorded Frémont the sobriquet "The Pathfinder".
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Pacific Railroad Surveys The Pacific Railroad Surveys (1853–1855) consisted of a series of explorations of the American West to find possible routes for a transcontinental railroad across North America. The expeditions included surveyors, scientists, and artists and resulted in an immense body of data covering at least 400000 sqmi on the American West. "These volumes... constitute probably the most important single contemporary source of knowledge on Western geography and history and their value is greatly enhanced by the inclusion of many beautiful plates in color of scenery, native inhabitants, fauna and flora of the Western country." Published by the United States War Department from 1855 to 1860, the surveys contained significant material on natural history, including many illustrations of reptiles, amphibians, birds, and mammals. In addition to describing the route, these surveys also reported on the geology, zoology, botany, paleontology of the land as well as provided ethnographic descriptions of the Native peoples encountered during the surveys.
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Hollenberg Pony Express Station Hollenberg Pony Express Station, also known as Cottonwood Pony Express Station, was built by Gerat H. Hollenberg in 1858, to serve travelers on the Oregon and California Trails. When the Pony Express was established in 1860, the cabin served riders and provided remounts. The station also served the Butterfield Overland Mail. Hollenberg traded with emigrants on the trails, operated the westernmost Pony Express station in Kansas, and provided relay services for the Overland Mail. The building has never been moved and retains its original dimensions. Hollenberg prospered, establishing the town of Hanover, Kansas and winning election to the Kansas Legislature.
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W. Price Hunt William or Wilson Price Hunt (March 20, 1783 – April 13, 1842) was an early pioneer of the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest of North America. An American and an employee of John Jacob Astor, Hunt used information supplied by the Lewis and Clark Expedition to lead the portion of the Astor Expedition that traveled to Oregon by land. The party reached the mouth of the Columbia River in February 1812, joining the portion of the expedition that had traveled by sea at Fort Astoria, which the latter party had just completed.
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Granite Pass (California Trail) Granite Pass on the California Trail, located in what is now Cassia County, Idaho less than half a mile north of Utah, has historic significance dating to 1842 when it was found by Joseph B. Chiles to serve as an adequate emigrant trail route to come west toward California from the Oregon Trail route that went through Fort Hall. Chiles was then returning east to Fort Hall in a small group that dropped out of the Bartleson–Bidwell Party, the first group attempting to emigrate with wagons from Missouri to California. The Granite Pass can be seen from far away, coming from that direction. When Chiles brought a west-bound wagon group through the pass in 1843 it became established. The California Trail eventually evolved and went through this pass; Chiles led seven different groups through the pass. When first used for emigrants as a wagon trail, it was part of Mexico.
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Comanche Crossing of the Kansas Pacific Railroad The Comanche Crossing of the Kansas Pacific Railroad is a site where the last spike was driven into the first continuous transcontinental railroad on August 15, 1870.
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Rocky Mountain Rendezvous Rocky Mountain Rendezvous (in trapper jargon) was an annual gathering (1825–1840) at various locations held by a fur trading company at which trappers and mountain men sold their furs and hides and replenished their supplies. The large fur companies put together teamster driven mule trains which packed in whiskey and supplies into a pre-announced location each spring-summer and set up a trading fairthe rendezvousand at the season's end, packed furs out, normally the British Companies to Fort Vancouver in the Pacific Northwest, and to one of the northern Missouri River ports such as St. Joseph, Missouri, if an American overland fur trading company.
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Bradshaw Trail The Bradshaw Trail, nicknamed the "Gold Road" at one time, is an historic overland stage route in Southern California which originally connected San Bernardino, California to gold fields in La Paz, Arizona Territory some 5 miles northeast of Ehrenberg, and the road to the mining districts of Central Arizona Territory, near Wickenburg and Prescott. In later years it was the first road connecting Riverside County to the Colorado River.
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Montana Central Railway The Montana Central Railway was a railway company which operated in the American state of Montana from 1886 to 1907. It was constructed by James Jerome Hill's St. Paul, Minneapolis & Manitoba Railway, and became part of the Great Northern Railway in 1889.
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Stoneman Military Trail The Stoneman Road, an important supply road between Fort McDowell and Fort Whipple in Prescott between 1870 and 1890. It was an important conduit for the shipping of supplies from Fort Whipple in Prescott to Fort McDowell on what is today the Yavapai Reservation near Fountain Hills.
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Granger Stage Station State Historic Site Granger Station State Historic Site, also known as Granger Stage Station, South Bend Station and Ham's Fork Station, is a Wyoming state park dedicated to the interpretation of the station, the Pony Express and the Overland Trail. A settlement was first established about 1856 at the meeting of Ham's Fork with Black's Fork of the Green River, where a ferry crossed Ham's Fork. This became a station on the Pony Express in 1860-1861, then was a station on the Overland Trail in 1862. By this time it was known as the South Bend Station. In 1868 the trail was superseded when the Union Pacific Railroad arrived at the site. The station was deeded to the State of Wyoming in 1930. It is operated as a state historic site. The Granger Station was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on February 26, 1970.
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Overland Route (Union Pacific Railroad) The Overland Route was a train route operated jointly by the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad / Southern Pacific Railroad, between Council Bluffs, Iowa / Omaha, Nebraska, and San Francisco, California over the grade of the First Transcontinental Railroad (aka the ""Pacific Railroad"") which had been opened on May 10, 1869. Passenger trains that operated over the line included the "Overland Flyer", later renamed the "Overland Limited", which also included a connection to Chicago. Although these passenger rail trains are no longer in operation, the Overland Route remains a common name for the line from California to Chicago, now owned entirely by the Union Pacific.
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Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 The Pacific Telegraph Act of 1860 called for the facilitation of communication between the east and west coasts of the United States of America. Hiram Sibley of the Western Union Telegraph Company won the contract. In 1861, Benjamin Franklin Ficklin joined Hiram Sibley in helping to form the Pacific Telegraph Company of Nebraska. At the same time, Jeptha Wade was asked by Hiram Sibley to consolidate smaller telegraph companies in California. While the Pacific Telegraph Company built west from Omaha, Nebraska, the Overland Telegraph Company of California was thus formed and built east from Carson City, Nevada. With their connection in Salt Lake City, Utah on October 24, 1861, the final link between the east and west coasts of the United States of America was made by telegraph. The First Transcontinental Telegraph lead to the immediate demise of the Pony Express. The Pacific Telegraph Company and the Overland Telegraph Company of California were eventually absorbed into the Western Union Telegraph Company.