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Pioneer Movements West (1835-1856)

Missionary, led by Dr. Whitman (1835-1843); Mormon, led by Joseph Smith (1846 on); Santa Fé caravans, a trade movement at its height in the late forties and early fifties; the California Gold Stampede which in one year (1849) raised the population of California from six thousand to hundreds of thousands; the Oregon fever (1847 to 1856) caused by hard times.

Military Occupation (1823 to present)

From Col. Leavenworth’s expedition against the Aricara Indians in 1823 through the eras of migration overland and railway building down to that of Howard against the Nez Percés in 1877, the army was called on to guard the trail. The Fetterman and Wagon-Box fights took place near Fort Kearney in 1866 and 1867.

Rail Pioneers (1856-1893)

Long and hazardous surveying preceded the era of actual roadbuilding in the sixties. The Union Pacific advertised in 1868: “track laid and trains running within ten miles of the Rockies.”

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There stand in America three great obelisks.