The Great Platte River Road

The Great Platte River Road through Nebraska and Wyoming was the grand corridor of America's westward expansion. A number of famous trails converged in the broad valley of the Platte, forming a kind of primitive superhighway for the great covered wagon migration from 1841 to 1866. From jumping-off places along the Missouri River-notably the Omaha-Council Bluffs, St. Joseph, and Kansas City areas-the emigrant throngs came together at Fort Kearny, Nebraska. Although they continued on to South Pass, Wyoming, and beyond, this book focuses on the feeder mutes and the more than three hundred miles between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie. The Great Platte River Road looks at border towns, trail routes, river crossings, stage stations, military posts, and such landmarks as Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff. It goes far beyond geography and Indian encounters in revealing cultural aspects of the great migration: food, dress, equipment, organization, camping, traffic patterns, sex ratios, morals, manners, religion, crime, accidents, disease, death, and burial customs. Merrill J. Mattes based his monumental work on an examination of more than seven hundred overland journals. He has included a chronology, original maps, contemporary sketches, modern photographs, and a comprehensive bibliography.

Author: Merrill J. Mattes
Publisher: Bison
Published: 11/01/1987
Pages: 600
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.94lbs
Size: 9.00h x 5.99w x 1.46d
ISBN13: 9780803281530
ISBN10: 0803281536
BISAC Categories:
- History | United States | 19th Century

About the Author
Merrill J. Mattes based his monumental work on an examination of more than seven hundred overland journals. He has included a chronology, original maps, contemporary sketches, modern photographs, and a comprehensive bibliography.