WAGONS!! WESTWARD!! HOOO!!!!

This museum is in CASPER, WYOMING.  This museum is all about the movement of people from the EAST to the WEST and the hardships they had to overcome to arrive at their destinations.  Many did not.  Weather and Indians were their worse enemies. And crossing the NORTH  PLATTE RIVER.

This wagon is a replicate of the wagon that they used.  Except for the driver, all family members walked.  At night, the family would sleep under the Wagon.

The museum had a wall of rock, where people carved their name, before they left Casper on their journey.

The BOZEMAN TRAIL left Casper and went north to MONTANA to the gold fields.  This trail was very difficult because of the Indians.  The area had mainly four tribes that had land that the government had giving them and was told no white man would cross the land.  The tribes were CHEYENNE,ARAPHOE, LAKOTA SIOUK and OGALALA.  The Calvary Had raided a Indian Village on what the Indians Called SANDY CREEK.  The warriors were hunting buffalo.  The Calvary killed many, women, children and old men.  The Indians never forgot this and they would fight any Calvary and attached any white person who came on their land.  The main war chief at that time was RED CLOUD. The military built 3 Forts along the trail to try to protect the white people. FORTs RENO, PHIL KEARNEY and C.F. SMITH.  It did not work. The military abandon the forts and withdrew from the area.  The Indians burned the forts.

1847, 7000 emigrants past thru Casper going west. One of the trails that went thru Casper was the  OREGON TRAIL.  The economic depressions of 1837 and 1841, led US farmers and businessmen to look for new opportunities. The politicians of that time urged people to go west.  They wanted that territory settled so the british could be pushed out. Many of the fur trappers became guides, because they knew the mountains and the passages.

The CALIFORNIA TRAIL happen for the people headed to the gold found in that area.  'Ho For California!'.  Free land. Gold.  Adventure.  Between 1841 and 1869,  more than a quarter million people answered this call and crossed the plains and mountains to the goldfields of the west.

The PONY EXPRESS has fascinated people since its first riders in April of 1860, headed west out of St Joseph, Missouri, and east out of San Francisco,  California.  The express only lasted for 19 months.  The coming of telegraph and train put a stop to the express. Thousands of horses and hundreds of  stations along the trail.  Wanted ad for riders, read' wanted, young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen.  must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily.  Orphans preferred.  Wages $25 per week'.

 THE MORMAN TRAIL was used to go to UTAH.  From 1846 to 1869 over 70,000 Mormons Traveled this trail which started in NAUVOO, ILLINOIS. to THE GREAT SALT LAKE in UTAH. Some Mormons travels with west pulling and pushing hand carts, which held about 500 pounds of necessary  food and personal items.  The travel was much more difficult for them, than my trip has been.  Still more to see......