Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Fur Trade & Emigrant Trails
In the early 1800s fur traders spread across the Rockies, trading with Native Americans and
living rough lives on the frontier. They came to know the Rockies backcountry better than
any other Europeans.
The Santa Fe Trail led west through hostile country from Missouri through Kansas and
Colorado. The trail was launched in the early 1830s. By 1833 the brothers William and Ge-
orge Bent had built a fort that was an oasis for pioneers traveling on the trail.
Even into the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of emigrants followed the Oregon
Trail across the Continental Divide to South Pass, where they split up to reach various des-
tinations. The Mormons came fleeing persecution in New York and the Midwest. In the late
1860s, completion of the Transcontinental Railroad across southern Wyoming slowed the
inexorable march of wagon trains.
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