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Show i8so] ROUTES OP TRAVEL 37 down the Dolores Valley, crossing the Grand River near the present site of Moab, Utah. It then led over to the Sevier, southwest up that stream, and down the Virgin. Instead of continuing to the Colorado, the trail turned west towards California, crossing the Mojave Desert and Cajon Pass, and terminated at San Bernardino and Los Angeles. This route was known as the Spanish Trail and was much used for many years. 1 Fr6mont, on his return from California in 1844, followed this trail as far as Utah. To the north the early settlers reached the Pacific slope over what came to be widely known as the Oregon Trail. This was about two thousand miles in length. It followed the Platte, its north fork, and the Sweetwater to South Pass; thence across the Green River, up Black River and Muddy Creek, and over the divide into Bear River Valley, which it left to ctoss to Fort Hall, on the Snake. Following the Snake River to a point below Salmon Falls, the trail cut across the plains to Fort Bois6, and thence down the Snake again to Burnt River. Ascending Burnt River Cafion it crossed to the upper Powder, thence over the divide of the Blue Mountains, and down the Umatilla to the Columbia. Movement along the Oregon Trail began about 1832, and by 1845 there were eight thousand Americans in the valley of the Columbia. 8 A southward movement had begun almost im- 1 Bancroft, Hist, of California, III., 386. * Monette, Hist, of the Mississippi Valley, II., 569. |
