In 1849, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Fort near Sacramento, California. This set off a rush by gold miners and those seeking “free” land in California. By 1869, more than 250,000 people crossed the plains and mountains heading to the West to find gold and to claim free land.

 

The California Trail offered many ways to get to the West Coast and California. One of the primary routes was the one through South Pass, Wyoming which led California-bound pioneers through southeast Idaho. One route led to Salt Lake City and then northward to Idaho where the Salt Lake Cutoff rejoined the main trail in Idaho at the City of Rocks.

 

By the 1860s, freight and mail companies, military expeditions, new settlements and trading stations and the thousands of travelers headed in all directions transformed the California Trail into a road. In 1869, the Union Pacific Railroad from the east was connected with the Central Pacific Railroad from the west at Utah’s Promontory Point. It now became possible to travel across the nation by rail. Its completion hailed in a new era of transportation and signaled the demise of wagon travel to the West.