The Overland Stage and Telegraph Lines

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Laramie Plains, not a station but a long stretch of country north of the Dale, which afforded an easy road for the Overland. The road ran west of the present city of Laramie, Wyoming, then north to Fort Halleck.

Fort Halleck, at the foot of Elk Mountain, in the Medicine Bow Range (Carbon County, Wyoming), named for Major-General Henry W. Halleck; established in 1863. From here the stage route was directly west to Bridger's Pass31 and Bridger's Pass Station to Bitter Creek Station, where the grass was poor and the water bitter and the alkali unbearable; to Green River, and then along the route adopted by the Union Pacific Railroad to old Fort Bridger, where the Oregon Trail and the Overland Route united, and thence to Utah.

Fort Halleck stood at the foot of Elk Mountain.

"Dear Mother: We arrived at this point last night. Shipley's, Mackey's and one company of regulars are stationed here. We left Laramie six days ago and occupied the whole time making the trip. For the first few days we had nothing to eat but fat pork, etc., but at last we killed two antelope and some mountain grouse, sage hens and ducks. The party consisted of my father, Lieutenant Glenn, the wagon master, Sergeant Morris, two privates, one from the regular army and another from Captain Mackey's company, myself, a teamster, Major Bridger and cook. Captain Craig, with our old friend, Colonel Clark and John Reid of Hillsborough, were with us two days, but being in a hurry, left. Lieutenant Glenn was sick nearly the whole time, having dined on cheese and wild cherries one day when he got separated from the party. We found plenty of wild grapes and gathered a good quantity. The whole country back from here on the road is covered with lakes, both large and small, which are covered with ducks. We came through a pass in the mountains, the sides of which were, in some places, three hundred or four hundred feet high and perpendicular.

Jim Bridger

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The pass was in very few places more than thirty yards wide. When we were about ten miles from this place the ambulance met us and took Lieutenant Glenn, who is now quite well. We camped two nights in the rain and sleet without any tent, and had a rather disagreeable time, but by burrowing in the bed clothes we got along tolerably well. The first night we had hardly any wood, being camped in a barren prairie. We made out with roots, etc. We are invited to a feat given by John Esse, a French trapper with a Sioux wife and ten or twelve half-breed children. My father thinks it is going to be a dog feast and I do not think he will go. I may. This mountain above the fort is covered with new-fallen snow. It abounds in game, the boys having killed a good many elk and deer, and several times single hunters have been chased by grizzlys. Nine have been seen together almost within the fort. Only one has been killed around here, but a good many have been shot. We are going to explore another road across the Black Hills to Fort Laramie. The mail runs through here. Lieutenant Clark is at present in command of this place. They have a regular surgeon and a quartermaster, both from the Fourth U.S. Cavalry. We are occupying a tent heated by an underground furnace, which makes it very comfortable. There is plenty of wood almost within the fort. There is a boarding house here for the officers, kept by a married regular, the same that came over with us. Three clear streams run through the garrison. The men have their stables built, but have not got their houses done. Some of them are working for the sutler and get from a dollar and a half a day. One of Shipley's men has died. Some Mexican teamsters have built themselves a house, partly under ground, which can be made as hot as a bake oven by a big fireplace in one corner. I would a great deal rather be on a tramp than in a fort, even for a single day. I rode in a mule the whole trip and prefer them to horses to travel on. We had corn for our animals the whole trip and very good grass. This is the windiest place I ever saw -- a hurricane blowing the whole time. It is a beautiful place, however. The tall mountains rising so abruptly that it does not look much farther to the top than it does to the foot. Sergeant Morris and four men will probably go back with us. We will probably take about seven or eight days going back. They have to haul their hay for this place about ten miles and their corn from seven hundred to nine hundred miles.

"Your affectionate son, C. W. Collins."

"Fort Laramie, October 8, 1862.

"Dear Mother: We arrived here from Fort Halleck yesterday. We had a very pleasant trip through the mountains. We came through on a new road never before traveled by anybody except Indians. We killed a great many antelope between that fort and this. In the mountains we did not see very much game, as the Indians have been hunting all through them and killed and scared all the game away. We had some pretty hard freezes and one snow storm that melted as it fell. We only put up the tent one night, but we always had good fires. The wagon master, Lieutenant Glenn, Sergeants Morris and Herman of Company C, four soldiers, including our hunting friend, Roberts, and the teamster and cook made up our party. I killed hares and rabbits, sage and prairie chickens, grouse and ducks and any other game in reach of duck-shot. My father killed two very large antelope. The dogs had the distemper on the march and had a rather hard time of it traveling. There is some of the grandest scenery you ever saw through the Black Hills. Immense piles of rock, covered with pines, and beautiful valleys of grass that is up to your waist. They are full of clear springs, which burst out and sink in the ground as soon as they reach the plains below. We had Major Bridger with us as a guide. He knows more of the Rocky Mountains than any living man. He came to this country about forty years ago in command of a party of thirty or forty trappers, and some time after, with some others, he organized the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, which drove the Hudson Bay Company from American soil. He is totally uneducated, but speaks English, Spanish, and French equally well, besides nearly a dozen Indian tongues, such as Snake, Bannock, Crow, Flathead, Nez Perce, Pen d'Orille, Ute and one or two others I cannot recollect. He has been in many Indian battles and has several arrow wounds, besides being hit so as almost to break his neck. Under him, Kit Carson first made his acquaintance with the Rocky Mountain region, and he traveled through them while Fremont was a child. It is very dull to come here to this post. I always dread it when I am out on a march. Every day is the same except the changes of weather. The bugle commences blowing the first thing in the morning, and is tooting away when you are in bed at night. The same calls all the time. The weather here at the fort is warm enough, but in the mountains it is as cold as it is with us in November.

"Your affectionate son, C. W. Collins."

It is to be noted that Lieutenant Collins mentions "a regular surgeon." In the diary of Dr. J. H. Finfrock, assistant surgeon of the Eleventh Ohio Volunteer Cavalry, which bears the words on the title page, "Halleck, Idaho Territory," while he and young Collins were at Fort Laramie in 1862, the following notations were made:

"Out shooting with Lieutenant Collins. Plenty of ducks. Bought rifle of sutler, $15. Indian lodges on Laramie river. April 10; pleasant and calm; went to Bordeaux with Stone and party. Had good dinner, eggs and milk. Bought shotgun and buckskins and moccasins. April 11; mild and calm; spent day in post; bought bow and arrows. April 12; cold, but milder; had a horse race; Idaho attached to District of Nebraska; headquarters, Omaha, under General R. B. Mitchell. Preparing to return to Halleck. Stone gave me a pointer pup -- "Rap." April 21; (after returning to Fort Halleck) mild and calm until evening
when it began blowing and snowing, and continued throughout the night. Boys had a dance at Company C's quarters. Six ladies present; 65 wagons and 118 men passed the fort on way to west."

In this diary there were also recorded the events of marriage, of children being born and of justice being administered by hanging. The contest for the peaceful possession of these lands between the two Plattes and the safe travel over the roads along the two streams, called for the posts and fortifications described in the foregoing. To make this territory in any degree safe for stages, emigrant trains and freight wagons, involved the difficult and dangerous task of rounding up the hostile Indians and driving them over the North Platte River north into a country that had the Big Horn Mountains on its west, the Black Hills to the east and the Yellowstone River to the extreme north, driving them into a territory known as the Powder River country, the cherished and favorite hunting grounds of more than one tribe of Indians, and the land through which the white man was determined to construct and protect by forts, the hated Bozeman Trail or Road.
 

Added August, 2007

California Trail in Nevada , approaching the Sierra

Nevada, courtesy National Park Service.

About the Authors:

Grace Raymond Hebard and Earl Alonzo Brininstool were both western historians in the early 20th century. This account was excerpted from their book, The Bozeman Trail: Historical Accounts of the Blazing of the Overland Routes Into the Northwest, published by the Arthur H. Clark Company in 1922. The article that appears on these pages is not verbatim, as it has been very briefly edited, primarily for spelling and grammatical corrections.

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