By Mark Henderson and Rachel Preston Prinz
Historical Descriptions
Aboriginal
Trails, Trade and Commerce (horse Trails) Trade
Anthropologist David Earle (2005) has
done extensive research on the aboriginal occupants and associated exchange
systems in the Mojave River Basin.
Ethnohistoric research on Southern Paiute occupants in the Amargosa
Valley has been sparse compared to that for Southern Paiute groups on the
Arizona Strip (Kelly 1934). Anthropologist Julian Steward (1970:180-182) takes
issue with Kelly’s intermixing of Southern Paiute bands in the Las Vegas Valley
with those on the Amargosa and Pahrump Valley and thinks that John Wesley
Powell’s distinguishing these as separate groups is more likely. The distinctiveness of this and other Paiute
geographic groupings may be very important in the different nature of
interactions that European travellers through the Mojave Desert report in the
19th Century.
Armijo
1830
On January 14, 1830, Armijo encounters
a village, stating (Hafen and Hafen 1993:164):
At
the River of the Payuches, where a village was found: nothing happened for it
was gentle.
Langenfelter (1986:21) infers that the
Paiute village mentioned by Armijo was at the location of Tecopa Hot Springs
just west of Emigrant Pass, implying use of the pass for westward travel.
Johnson (n.d.:16) does not concur, favoring some “Little Salty Spring” farther
south on the Amargosa, implying a more southern route around the Nopah
range. Casebier (1975:31) prefers a route for Armijo approximating the
“Kingston Springs cutoff,” also supporting the southern bypass of the Nopah
Range. Warren (1974:71-73) places
Armijo’s route over Emigrant pass preceeded by a Camp at an un-named pass on
January 12 and “Little Salty Springs” on January 13. Warren identifies “Little Salty Springs” as
Resting Springs, but Johnson (n.d.: 24) convincingly disputes the correlation.
Thus, historical interpretations both support and deny that Armijo may have
used this pass, and until further historical and/or archaeological
substantiation occurs, we must consider Armijo’s use of Emigrant Pass as “within
the realm of possibility.”
The
1837 Pope-Slover Emigrant Party
Johnson (2009:3) continues what was
likely a marketing and promotional myth created by Antoine Leroux and suported
by those with commercial interests in St. Louis, that wagons made a successful
voyage from Taos to southern California in 1837. Promotion of the “Central
Route” [from St. Louis to Salt Lake City) “Southern Route” (from Salt Lake City
to Los Angeles) and alternatives were a
matter of high emotion among business interests, evidenced in the fatal
stabbing of Francois Aubry in 1854 as a result of a dispute over the preferred
route of the transcontinental road (Baxter 1987:138, 144).
Frémont 1844 (Jackson and Spence 1970:684-5)
April
30. We continued our journey over a
district similar to that of the day before.
From the sandy basin [Chicago Valley], in which was the spring [Resting
Spring], we entered another basin [California Valley] of the same character,
surrounded every where by mountains. Before us stretched a high range, rising
still higher to the left, and terminating in a snowy mountain [Mt Charleston].
After
a day’s march of 24 miles [from Resting Springs], we reached at evening the bed
of a stream from which the water had disappeared; a little only remained in
holes, which we created by digging; and about a mile above, the stream, not yet
entirely sunk, was spread out over the sands, affording a little water for the
animals. The stream came out of the
mountains on the left, very slightly wooded with cottonwood, willow, and acacia
[mesquite], and a few dwarf oaks; and grass was nearly as scarce as water. A plant with showy yellow flowers (Stanleya
integrifolia [Baileya multiradiata?]) occurred abundantly at intervals for the
last two days, and eriogonum inflatum[Desert Trumpet] was among the
characteristic plants.
Orville
Pratt 1848 (Hafen and Hafen 1993:356)
Sunday
Oct. 15 1848 Started in good season and marched from Escarbado [spanish for
“dig, scrape or scratch;” today called Stump Spring] to the Archaletta [Resting]
Sp. The distance was a full 30 m., &
over a hard road. One formidable hill, & much of the way sandy or
rocky. Water & grass at this camp
good. Wood also abundant.
Brewerton
1847 (Brewerton 1993).
There is ambiguous geographic detail
in the Brewerton travel account from Los Angeles to Taos between May 4 and June
14, 1847 where he was in the company of Kit Carson (Hafen and Hafen
1993:317-339). There has been debate about the route travelled eastward after
the perilous crossing of the Colorado River at Green River, Utah (Simmons in
Brewerton 1993:xviii; Hafen and Hafen 1993:332-335). In his introduction to the Brewerton account,
Stallo Vinton suggests that Brewerton followed the “regular Spanish Trail,
which again is the shortest route” (Brewerton 1993:11) but the weight of
circumstantial evidence favors the conclusion of Hafen and Hafen (1993:336-337)
that Brewerton enters the “Taos Valley” over 100 miles and five days travel
north of Taos (Brewerton 1993:122-144).
In the eastward travel, Brewerton does give an important general
description of the last eastbound caravan on the “great Spanish Trail”
summarizing as follows (Brewerton 1993:59):
This caravan consisted of some two or
three hundred mexican traders who go once a year to the California coast with a
supply of blankets and other articles of New Mexican manufacture; and having
disposed of their goods, invest the proceeds in Californian mules and horses,
which they drive back across the desert.
These people often realize large profits, as the animals purchased for a
mere trifle on the coast, bring high prices in Santa Fé. This caravan had left the Pueblo of Los
Angeles some time before us , and were consequently several days in advance of
our party upon the trail – a circumstance which did us great injury, as their
large caballada (containing nearly a thousand head) ate up or destroyed the
grass and consumed the water at the few camping grounds upon the route.
The Carson-Brewerton party caught up
to the caravan eight days out from Los Angeles, probably in the vicinity of
current Barstow, on or about the 12th of May.
It appears that the last caravan left around the first of May,
substantially later than the March 1st departure date that Armijo reports in
1830 (Hafen and Hafen 1993:165). The later timing would take advantage of the
green-up in the Mojave, with half the annual precipitation coming in March and
April, and follow the spring “greening” as it travelled up elevation into the
Colorado Plateau. The disadvantage of
this timing being high water that Brewerton observed at the Green River
crossing in early June (1993:113-122), which Heap also observed in late July 1853 (Heap 1855:83), and that the
Gunnison wagon train crossed without any difficulty on October 1st 1853
(1854:67).
Brewerton’s account is also is
important because it describes one of the most often repeated incidents on the
Spanish Trail: the attack of the Fuentes-Hernandez-Giacome party by Paiutes at
Resting Spring as had been previously documented by Frémont in April, 1844 [Brewerton 1993:87-94;
Jackson and Spence 1970:677-684).
Frémont says (Jackson and Spence
1970:681) of Carson and Godey that their exploits in tracking, scalping two
Indians and returning a part of the remuda of fifteen horses :
“… may be considered among the boldest
and most disinterested which the annals of western adventure, so full of daring
deeds, can present. Two men, in a savage
desert, pursue day and night an unknown body of Indians into the defiles of an
unknown mountain – attack them on sight, without counting numbers – and defeat
them in an instant – and for what? To punish the robbers of the desert, and to
avenge the wrongs of Mexicans whom they did not know. I repeat it was Carson and Godey who did this
– the former an American, born in Boonslick country of Missouri; the latter a
Frenchman, born in St. Louis – and both trained to western enterprise from
early life.”
Early US Territorial Trails and
Commerce (1848-1875)
The
Salt Lake to Los Angeles Road
Extensive historical research of the
mercantile and emigrant route that came with the establishment of the Mormon
settlement of Salt Lake City in 1846 has been undertaken (Hafen and Hafen 1998,
Lyman and Reese 2001, Lyman 2004 and Johnson n.d.). A wagon made it part way on the trail from
Los Angeles to Salt Lake starting out on February 15, 1848, but had to be
abandoned before the part reached Salt Lake City in May of 1848 (Lyman
2004:41).
Of the section between Stump Spring
and Resting Spring, Addison Pratt on November 27th 1849 states (Hafen and Hafen
1998:93-94):
After
we left the camp ground, I saw a half dozen head of horses and cattle that had
been left by those that were ahead of us, some were dead and others were nearly
so, one horse we drove along, at noon we came to a spur of a mountain that we
had to cross. The road over it was stony
and steep, as we were some way ahead of the wagons, we went to cleaning stones
out of the road, and by the time they came up we had it so well cleaned that
they went over without doubling teams, traveled until 8 o’clock and camped at
some springs called Archalette, distance today 22 miles.
Pratt goes on to briefly recount the
massacre of some “Spaniards” by “a band of Indians,” without noting the
specific year or source of the story as the Frémont Expedition of 1844. By 1851, the itinerary of the wagon road
following the old pack trail with established distances and camps had been well
established, described in Addison
Pratt’s 1849 measurements and journal (Hafen and Hafen 1998:321-324).
Sheep
Drives
Baxter (1987:114-115)mentions only one
sheep enterprise following the Old Spanish Trail through the Mojave desert;
4,000 head owned by William Z. Angney departing Abiquiu in summer of 1850 and
driving northward to the Tulare Valley by early December. Johnson (n.d.:15) presents evidence that Dr.
Thomas Flint drove 1,000 head of sheep down the “Old Spanish Trail” arriving
Resting Springs on December 30, 1853.
Heap 1853 (Heap 1854). Leaving Westport, Kansas on the 6th of May
1853, less than two months in advance of the Gunnison Expedition, Gwin Harris
Heap accompanied his Uncle, Edward Fitzgerald Beale, who had been appointed
Superintendent of Indian Affairs in California, to the overland destination of Los Angeles
(Wheat 2004:197- 201). The party
consisted of a dozen travellers (Heap 1854:13) and a number of riding horses,
mules and pack mules
Heap’s observations on the route give
the fullest account of general conditions on the North Branch route between
Fort Massachusetts (just north of modern Fort Garland [leaving June 15]), and
after a detour to resupply in Taos, joining the main route of their passage –
which they called and would thusly become known as the “Spanish Trail” near the
Green River crossing (on July 24). From
Green River, the Beale Party travelled the established “main route” of the
“Spanish Trail.” While after the period
of significance of 1829-1848, this account combined with that of Brewerton
(1993) paints the narratives of cultural and natural geography of the region
reflecting the Mexican period and establish the “Spanish Trail” as an existing,
known network.
Heap’s account promoting the “Central Route” to California
is also accompanied by testimonials of Charles W. McClanahan and R.S “Uncle
Dick” Wooten regarding the suitability of the route for emigrant travel and a
commercial livestock driveway because of the directness of the route and the
quality of forage (Heap 1854:123-127).
McClanahan claims to have followed just behind Gunnison with 2,000 sheep and
between 3 and 400 head of cattle, supported by an unknown number of wagons
(Heap 1854:124,126). The physical treadway that Heap traversed with a limited
number of horses and mules after joining the Salt Lake to Los Angeles Wagon
Road on August 1st 1853, was largely obliterated by later wagon traffic (Heap
1854:89), and traces of the original route completely destroyed by heavy wagon traffic and thousands of head
of sheep, hundreds of cattle and wagons pulled by oxen, mules and horses.
The Beale pack train left camp at
Stump Springs (“the Escarbada”) on August 14, 1853 camping at Resting Spring
that evening. Heap (1854:104-105) records the day as follows:
August
14. Twelve miles from the Escarbada, the
road makes a sudden bend to the westward, and ascends a steep ridge, from the
top of which a magnificent, but solemn and dreary view presented itself. Four ranges of mountains, overtopping each
other, extended from north to south, and bounded the western horizon; to the
eastward was spread a wide extent of country, which offered, in every
direction, the same absence of timber, and of almost all vegetation. The solitude was unrelieved by the song of a
bird or the chirp of insect; the mornful murmur of the breeze, as it swept over
the desert, was the only sound that broke the silence. In many places, a deceptive mirage spread
fictitious lakes and spectral groves to our view, or a change in our position,
suddenly disolved.
A
rapid descent down a sinuous ravine, from two to three miles in length, brought
us to the sink in the plain, where is found Ojo de Archiléte (Archilete’s
Spring), at some distance from which are many small willows, but in its
immediate vicinity there is a total absence of shade; the water is clear and
cool, but slightly brackish. A cruel
tragedy, heroically avenged by Kit Carson and Alexander Godey, and recorded by
Frémont, occurred here in 1844, and has rendered this spot memorable; we found
near the spring the skull of an Indian, killed perhaps in that affray. Day’s travel, 22 miles; whole distance 1,630
miles [from Westport, Missouri].
GLO
Surveys
The GLO Surveys were not inspected for
the Emigrant Springs area. They are not
posted on the BLM national website.
Lingenfelter (1986:80-97) reviews the mapping history of the Amargosa
Basin and the problems related with relying on these maps.
Wheeler
Surveys
Wheeler’s Atlas Sheet 66 (1872) shows
the course of the wagon road from “Stump Springs” to “Resting Springs” through
the Kingston Range. This map also
illustrates the “Kingston Cutoff” through “Coyote Hole” accepted as the route
first opened by Col. Reese in 1854 as described by Carvalho (2004:232-236,
Steiner 1999:213-232).
Late
19th Century and Early Twentieth Century History
Ken Lenger and George Ross (2004) have
produced a history of the Shoshone and Tecopa areas which focuses on late 19th
Century and early 20th Century mining history and settlement.
Twentieth
Century Land Uses
Bureau of Land Management
administrative records form a record of federally approved land uses in the
Emigrant Pass route segment located in Township 21 North, Range 8 and 9 East of
the San Bernardino Meridian. Master
Title Plats (MTPs) and Historical Indices (HIs)
link to case files which detail only the Nopah Range Wilderness to the
north and the South Nopah Wilderness to the south of the paved highway along the “Old Spanish Trail” corridor. No
rights of way have apparently been filed on the route of the Old Spanish Trail
Highway.