From the "jumping-off places" along the Missouri River (such as Independence, St. Joseph, and the Council Bluffs area), emigrants bound for Oregon, California, and later Utah shared the same transportation corridor, hence the combined name of Oregon-California Trail.  This main corridor followed along the Platte and Sweetwater Rivers to South Pass, where the earliest route continued to the Fort Bridger trading post (established in 1843) and then turned northwest to reach the Snake River at the Fort Hall trading post (established in 1834).  Oregon bound emigrants continued along the Snake River artery while California bound emigrants turned southwest at the Raft River to reach the Humboldt River artery and on over the Sierra Nevada to California.  In following years, resulting from the Mormon settlement of Salt Lake Valley and the Gold Rush, branches and cutoffs proliferated as the overland migration increased.  Prior to the Civil War, as many as 300,000 emigrants had followed these overland trails.

      As shown on the following map, the California Trail began in 1841 as a single, tenuous strand along the Humboldt River. The additional routes that branched off of the California Trail are also shown.

HUMBOLDT RIVER ROUTE (1841)

      The Bidwell-Bartleson Party of 1841 was the first organized group of emigrants attempting to reach northern California by way of the Humboldt River.  Leaving the Oregon Trail near Soda Springs (Idaho), this party followed the Bear River south, then turned westerly around the north end of the Great Salt Lake, searching for a way to the Humboldt River.  Beyond Pilot Peak, they abandoned their remaining wagons, finally reaching the Humboldt River west of modern Elko, Nevada, on what later would be the Hastings Cutoff.  Following the Humboldt River to its sink, the party then sought to cross the Sierra Nevada by turning southwest, where they struggled over the mountains somewhere near present Sonora Pass into the San Joaquin Valley.

      No west-bound emigrant parties tried to reach California directly overland in 1842.  However, a small east-bound party of thirteen returned to Missouri using the Humboldt River route.  Among them was Joseph Chiles, who had been in the Bidwell-Bartleson Party and would play an important part in the subsequent opening of more segments of the California Trail.

RAFT RIVER-BISHOP CANYON ROUTE TO THE HUMBOLDT RIVER (1843)

      Joseph Chiles organized an emigrant wagon party in 1843.  West of Fort Laramie, by chance, he met his old friend Joseph Walker, who agreed to guide them.  Ten years earlier, Walker had led a large party of fur trappers to California and knew the far west as well as anyone.  Due to a lack of supplies at Fort Hall, Chiles and Walker divided their party into a pack train and a wagon train.  Chiles led the pack train with the intent of reaching California through eastern Oregon by outflanking the Sierra Nevada.  Among his party were Samuel Hensley and John Myers, both of whom later blazed important new trails.  Once in California, Chiles planned to send a party eastward to the Humboldt Sink with supplies for the slower moving wagon train led by Walker.  After a long and arduous trip, Chiles' pack train reached Sutter's Fort in November, but snow in the Sierra Nevada passes prevented his relief party from reaching Walker's company.

      After following the Humboldt to its sink and finding no relief party, Walker turned southwest, then south, retracing the route of his fur trading expedition of 1833-34.  Running short of supplies and with their mules weakened, Walker's party abandoned their wagons at Owens Lake.  Finally they crossed the southern end of the Sierra Nevada, through the pass Walker had used in leaving California in 1834 (later Walker Pass), and entered the southern part of the great Central Valley of California.  Walker's route to California by way of Walker Pass proved impractical as an overland wagon trail to California.

      The small migration of 1844 to California would find a more direct route over the Sierra Nevada and demonstrate that wagons could make it all the way to California.  A year later, improvements began on what was now the main California Trail.

TRUCKEE RIVER ROUTE (1844)

      After pioneering the Sublette/Greenwood Cutoff west of South Pass in 1844, the Elisha Stephens Party (sometimes called the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party), accompanied by mountain-men Caleb Greenwood and Isaac Hitchcock, continued on the Oregon Trail.  At the Raft River, they turned south and followed the route used the previous year by the Walker-led party.  Reaching Humboldt Sink, the Stephens Party confronted the same dilemma that the parties of 1841 and 1843 had faced-how to surmount the Sierra Nevada.  At that critical juncture, they met the Paiute Indian chief whom they named "Truckee."  He provided directions on how to follow the Truckee River to a pass over the Sierra Nevada (usually known as Donner Pass but more correctly as Stephens Pass).  After many hardships, the Stephens Party made it to Sutter's Fort, thereby completing the opening of the first overland wagon route to California.  Improvements in 1845 and 1846 (via Dog Valley and Roller Pass) on the first route over the Sierra Nevada would turn it into an established wagon trail.

      On Caleb Greenwood's return trip from Sutter's Fort in 1845 to guide more emigrants to California, he worked out a permanent wagon route by way of Dog Valley that avoided the treacherous Truckee River gorge leading to Stephens Pass.   At Fort Hall, Greenwood and his sons promoted a wagon train to California and led it over the Raft River route (Fort Hall Road).  After leaving Thousand Springs Valley, Greenwood's party bypassed the rugged trail through Bishop Canyon, used the two previous years, and reached the source of the Humboldt River at the natural wells near present-day Wells, Nevada.  From the Humboldt Wells, they turned west to join the Bishop Creek route, thereby opening up a new branch to reach the Humboldt River.  Thereafter, emigrants used both branches, with the Bishop Creek route receiving the most traffic.

      Seeking a safer and more direct route to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, the Applegate brothers, Jesse and Lindsey, along with Levi Scott led a group from the Willamette Valley into the northeastern corner of California to the southern end of Goose Lake.  They then headed northeast, then southeast over what would become Fandango Pass, turned southeast through High Rock Canyon, and crossed the Black Rock Desert to Rabbithole Springs.  From there, after much searching, they completed the trail to the Humboldt River at what would become Lassen Meadows (the northern tip of present Rye Patch Reservoir).  Soon a number of Oregon bound emigrants branched off the Humboldt River route on this new Southern Road to Oregon (as it was also known).

      In 1846 Lansford Hastings led the first wagon train on a supposed short cut west from Fort Bridger.  This party entered the Salt Lake Valley through Weber Canyon and crossed the Great Salt Lake Desert to connect with the California Trail where the South Fork of the Humboldt enters the Humboldt River.  The Donner-Reed party followed Hastings to Weber Canyon where they turned south and then west to reach the Salt Lake Valley.  The Mormon exodus to Salt Lake Valley in 1847 would use the Hastings-Donner route from Fort Bridger.  During the gold rush years of 1849-50, some parties would follow Hastings' desert trail west of Salt Lake City to the Humboldt River.

CARSON TRAIL (1848)

      In order to avoid the rigors of the Truckee Trail on their return to Salt Lake City, a group of Mormons, most of whom were former members of the disbanded Mormon Battalion, pioneered a new wagon trail to the Carson River.  Beginning at Pleasant Valley, east of what would become Placerville, they followed ridges to the crest of the Sierra Nevada and then made their way through Carson Pass and along the Carson River to a point near modern Fallon, Nevada.  From there they struck northwest to the bend in the Truckee River, where they joined the main California Trail.

      As they headed east along the Humboldt River, the Mormon group met Joseph Chiles, again leading an emigrant train west, and informed him of their new wagon trail.  Having been on the Carson River with the earlier Bidwell-Bartleson party, Chiles decided to turn southwest at the Humboldt Sink and blaze a wagon trail over the Forty Mile Desert to the Carson River.  He reached the river about where the Mormon group had left it for the Truckee River, a place during the Gold Rush known as "Rag Town."  This final link across the Forty Mile Desert completed the opening of the important Carson Trail to the gold fields.

      After having been mired in mud trying to follow the Hastings Cutoff cross the Great Salt Lake Desert in 1848, frontiersman Samuel Hensley (who had been with Chiles in 1843) led his pack train back to Salt Lake Valley.  There he turned north then west around the Great Salt Lake to reach the California Trail at the western end of City of Rocks. Continuing along the Humboldt River, Hensley met the returning Mormon group, who had just opened up the Carson River route, and told them about his new cutoff.  At City of Rocks, the Mormon group found Hensley's pack trail and took their wagons over it to Salt Lake Valley, thereby adapting the cutoff to wagon use.  During the Gold Rush period, Hensley's Salt Lake Cutoff received heavy emigrant use.

      About the time the Mormon group, the Chiles party, and Hensley's pack train were moving up and down the Humboldt River in 1848, Peter Lassen--leading a small wagon train--took the Applegate Trail as far as Goose Lake.  There he turned south along the Pit River, intending to reach his ranch in northern Sacramento Valley.  After struggling through forested areas, Lassen's party ran out of provisions.  At that point, two parties headed for the gold fields from Oregon caught up with Lassen's demoralized group and provided the necessary aid and assistance to get them all to his ranch, thereby opening up the Lassen Trail.

      A large wagon train captained by Benoni Hudspeth and guided by John J. Myers (who had been with Chiles in 1843) intended to reach the Humboldt River on a shorter route that bypassed Fort Hall.  They branched off the California Trail in a westerly direction where the Bear River bends south at Soda Springs in present southeastern Idaho.  Six days and about 130 miles later, they rejoined the California Trail where it leaves the Raft River, far short of their hoped for savings in time and distance.  The bulk of the remaining migration followed this new Hudspeth Cutoff, though in fact it was not much of an improvement over the older Fort Hall Road.

      The discovery of new gold fields up and down the Mother Lode country after 1849 led civic and entrepreneurial promoters to open up trails to their favored location in rapid succession.  All these trails branched off one of the three main northern routes to California and usually were opened from west to east.  Some proved successful while others were short lived or little used.

      Branching off the Truckee Trail were the Nevada City Road (1850) to Nevada City, the Beckwourth Trail (1851) to Bidwell Bar-Marysville, and the Henness Pass Road (1852) to Camptonville & Marysville.

      Branching off the Carson Trail were the Dagget Pass-Georgetown Pack Trail (1850) to Georgetown, the Johnson Cutoff (1850-51) to Placerville, the Grizzly Flat Road (1852)to Grizzley Flat & Placerville, the Volcano Road (1852) to Volcano, the Walker River-Sonora Trail (1852) to Sonora, the Placer County Emigrant Road (1852) to Auburn, the Luther Pass Trail (1854) to shorten the Johnson Cutoff, and the Big Tree Road (1856) to Murphys & Stockton.

      Branching off the Applegate Trail/Southern Road to Oregon were the Nobles Trail (1852) to Shasta City and the Yreka Trail (1852) to Yreka.