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Show 30 Old Spanish Trail or southern route to California. Between these two overland routes lay a vast area, most of which was yet to be explored. Several groups had explored up and down the east and west sides of the Basin, but few had penetrated the central regions. John C. Fremont filled a large portion of this void on his third expedition in 1845-46. After that, emphasis on exploration shifted to locating a direct route to California south of the Great Salt Lake. Hastings, Gunnison, Beckwith, Fremont, Steptoe, Forty-niners, and Mormon missionaries all attempted to find the ellusive shortcut with varying degrees of success during the late l840s and early 1850s. For the most part, their efforts centered on crossing the salt desert and proceeding west immediately south of the Humboldt River route or attempting a direct route west of the Cedar City area to Walker Pass in the southern Sierras. The Mormon church attempted to plant one settlement in the interior of the Great Basin in I855 and failed. Their deepest penetration was Snake Valley near the present Utah-Nevada border. Those to travel in the central Great Basin prior to the White Mountain Expedition of 1858 were a very select group of explorers. Only Jedediah S. Smith, John C. Fremont, and the Death Valley company had as yet ventured into the central area between the Spanish Trail and the Humboldt River. Now the White Mountain Expedition was about to plunge into this long-neglected region. |