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6 unusual facts about Overland Trail


Martha Ellen Young Truman

Martha Ellen Young was born in Jackson County, Missouri, on November 25, 1852, to Solomon Young, a successful farmer who also had a business running Conestoga wagon trains along the Overland Trail, and his wife Harriet Louisa Gregg.

North Fork Cache la Poudre River

The valley of the North Fork was historically used a trail route between the Colorado Piedmont and the Laramie Plains, including the Cherokee Trail and the Overland Trail.

Overland Trail

General William Henry Ashley had crossed the Laramie Plains in 1825, John C. Fremont camped near Elk Mountain in 1843 and miners and trappers heading to California used the Cherokee Trail in the late 1840s.

Following the same path as the later transcontinental railroad and modern Interstate 80, the trail crosses the Red Desert and follows Bitter Creek through the present towns of Rock Springs, Point of Rocks, and Green River.

Remains of stage stops are scattered throughout Wyoming and northern Colorado including well preserved buildings at Virginia Dale, Colorado and Point of Rocks, Wyoming.

In 1851 U.S. Army Topographical Engineer Captain Howard Stansbury returning east from an expedition to the Salt Lake Valley described a route from Fort Bridger via the Bitter Creek valley and Laramie Plains to the North Platte River.


Elizabeth Hickok Robbins Stone

:The army decommissioned Camp Collins in March 1867, so the house built as an officer's mess was turned into the first hotel in Fort Collins, Colorado by Stone, which housed and fed Overland Trail travelers.

Sierra Railway 28

The 28 also made a few brief cameo appearances in several movies and TV show during this time including, Overland Trail, Nichols, Little House on the Prairie, Bound for Glory and The World's Greatest Lover.


see also

Overland Trail Middle School

Overland Trail Middle School is one of eight middle schools operated in the Blue Valley School District, located in Overland Park, Kansas.