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The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte and Sweetwater Rivers to Wyoming. In the present states of Wyoming, Idaho, and Utah the California and Oregon trails split into several different trails or cutoffs. ==History== By 1847, two former fur trading frontier forts marked trailheads for major alternative routes in Utah and Wyoming to Northern California. The first was Jim Bridger's Fort Bridger (est. 1842) in present-day Wyoming on the Green River where the Mormon Trail turned southwest over the Wasatch Mountains to the newly established Salt Lake City, Utah. From Salt Lake the Salt Lake Cutoff (est. 1848) went north and west of the Great Salt Lake and rejoined the California Trail in the City of Rocks in present-day Idaho. The main Oregon and California Trails crossed the Green River on several different ferries and trails (cutoffs) that led to or bypassed Fort Bridger and then crossed over a range of hills to the Great Basin drainage of the Bear River (Utah). Just past present-day Soda Springs, Idaho both trails initially turned northwest following the Portneuf River (Idaho) valley to the British Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Hall (est. 1836) on the Snake River in present-day Idaho. From Fort Hall the Oregon and California trails went about southwest along the Snake River Valley to another "parting of the ways" trail junction at the junction of the Raft and Snake River. The California Trail from the junction followed the Raft River to the City of Rocks in Idaho near the present Nevada-Idaho-Utah tripoint. The Salt Lake and Fort Hall routes were about the same length—about . From the City of Rocks the trail went into the present state of Utah following the South Fork of the Junction Creek. From there the trail followed along a series of small streams like Thousand Springs Creek in the present state of Nevada till they got to near present-day Wells, Nevada where they met the Humboldt River. By following the crooked, meandering Humboldt River Valley west across the arid Great Basin, emigrants were able to get the water, grass, and wood needed by all travelers and their teams. The water turned increasingly alkaline as they progressed down the Humboldt, there were almost no trees so "firewood" usually consisted of broken brush and the grass was sparse and dried out—few liked the Humboldt River Valley passage. At the end of the Humboldt River where it disappeared into the alkaline Humboldt Sink they had to cross the deadly Forty Mile Desert before finding either the Truckee River or Carson River that leds to the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada that weres the last major obstacles before entering Northern California.〔Humboldt and Central Route NPS write up () Accessed 30 July 2012〕 An alternative route across the present states of Utah and Nevada that bypassed both Fort Hall and the Humboldt River trails was developed in 1859. This route, the Central Overland Route, which was about shorter and over ten days quicker went south of the Great Salt Lake and across the middle of present-day Utah and Nevada through a series of springs and small streams. The route went south from Salt Lake City across the Jordan River to Fairfield, Utah, then west-southwest past Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge, Callao, Utah, Ibapah, Utah, to Ely, Nevada, then (roughly following today's U.S. Route 50) across Nevada to Carson City, Nevada. (See: Pony Express Map〔Pony Express Map () accessed 27 July 2012〕) In addition to immigrants after 1859 the Pony Express, Overland stages and the First Transcontinental Telegraph (1861) all followed this route with minor deviations. Once in western Nevada and eastern California, the pioneers worked out several paths over the rugged Carson Range and Sierra Nevada mountains into the gold fields, settlements and cities of northern California. The main routes initially (1846–1848) being the Truckee Trail to the Sacramento Valley and after about 1849 the Carson Trail route to the American River and the Placerville, California gold digging region. Starting about 1859 the Johnson Cutoff (Placerville Route, est. 1850–51) and the Henness Pass Route (est. 1853) across the Sierras were greatly improved and developed as the main roads across the Sierras—both were toll roads to pay for maintenance and upkeep on the roads. These toll roads were also used to carry cargo west to east from California to Nevada as thousands of tons of supplies were needed by the gold and silver miners, etc. working on the Comstock Lode (1859–1888) near the present Virginia City, Nevada. The Johnson Cutoff, from Placerville to Carson City along today's U.S. Route 50 in California, was used by the Pony Express (1860–1861) year-round and in the summer by the stage lines (1860–1869) since it was the only overland route from the east to California that could be kept partially open for at least horse traffic in the winter. The California Trail was heavily used from 1845 to 1869 when several rugged wagon routes across the Carson Range and Sierra Nevada mountains to different parts of northern California were established. After about 1848 the most popular route was the Carson Route which, while rugged, was still easier than most others and entered California in the middle of the gold fields. The trail was heavily used in the summers until the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad by the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads in 1869. Trail traffic then rapidly fell off as the cross-country trip was much quicker by train—only about seven days. The economy class fare of about $69 was affordable by most potential travelers. The trail was used by about 2,700 settlers up to 1849. These settlers were instrumental in helping convert California to a U.S. possession as volunteer members of John C. Fremont's California Battalion assisted the Pacific Squadron's sailors and marines in 1846 and 1847. After the discovery of gold in January 1848, word spread about the California Gold Rush. Starting in late 1848, over 250,000 businessmen, farmers, pioneers and miners passed over the California Trail to California. The traffic was so heavy that in two years these settlers, combined with those coming by wagon from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, California in winter, the travelers down the Gila River trail in Arizona and those traveling by sea routes around Cape Horn and the Magellan Strait or by sea and then across the Isthmus of Panama, Nicaragua or Mexico and then by sea to California, had expanded California's population enough by 1850 (about 120,000 by corrected 1850 U.S. Census data)〔"Historical Statistics of the United States, 1789–1945"; () Accessed 14 April 2011〕 to make it eligible to become the 31st state. The original route had many branches and cutoffs, encompassing about in total. About of the rutted traces of these trails remain in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Nevada and California as historical evidence of the great mass migration westward. Portions of the trail are now preserved by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and the National Park Service (NPS) as the California National Historic Trail and marked by BLM, NPS and the many state organizations of the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA).〔(Oregon-California Trail Association )〕 Maps put out by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) show the network of rivers followed to get to California. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「California Trail」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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