The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1931-02-20

the New York business man steps into an airplane,
bound for conference with his associates in San
Francisco, the me-distance between the Atlantic
and the Pacific is measured in hours and minutes
And that in brief, is the story of transportation
in America.
Because Of the many romantic elements in it,
the most interesting aspect Of the story is con-
tanned in the chronicles Of the last 100 years.
Last year "the Covered Wagon Centennial"
celebrated throughout the trans Mississippi West.
1t was celebrated because on April 10, 1880, the
three leaders of fur trading company, Jedediah
s. Smith, David E. Jackson and w. L. Sublette,
called the roll Of their outfit Of 81 men, ordered
the oxen and mules hitched to the ten wagons in
the wagon train and started out from st. Louis
for the West. The route over which they travelled
until they reached the head of the Wind river in
the Rockies was then but thin, poorly defined
trail over the plains and through the mountains.
But later it to be a broad highway cut by
the oxen hoofs and wagon wheels Of thousands OF
emigrants who made the historic trek to Oregon.
For this the beginning Of the famous Oregon
or Overland Trail, along whose 1900 miles Trans
portation history was to be made.
The Jackson Sublette expedition was net
the first which had gone that route. Parts of
it had been traversed by Lewis and Clark, the
explorers, quarter Of century before; by "the
AstOrians," a band Of seven men returning to the
East in 1913 from Astoria, Ore, where they had
u
head of the American Fur company and by vari-
Gus other free trappers and traders who had ven
tured into the Great Unknown that was the trans
Mississippi West Of the early part of the Nine
teenth century But the transportation of all of
these had been canoes and boats on the streams
and horses and packtrains on the land. The sig
nifcance of the 1880 party was that these were
the first wheeled vehicles bearing the conquering
white man toward the setting on the route
over which all the successive steps in transporta-
ton history were to be taken-from water travel,
through land travel in all its phases, to the ulti-
mate air travel.
Whole volumes have been written about this
pageant Of transportation which passed over the
historic Overland Trail it is possible, within
the lengths of this article, only to give the high
spots" in the form of summary, such this:
1S3O-Smith- Jackson Sublette party took the
first covered wagon" train the Overland
Trail.
1S47-Mormons start west. The Mormons, who
had wintered at Florence just north Of the pres
ent site of Omaha, made their famous migration
to the valley of the Great Salt lake.
1S49-The trail, simultaneous with the cry of
Gold in California" became the greatest travelled
highway In the world-wider and more beaten
than city street-and hundreds of thousands Of
wagons passed over it.
1s56-The first monthly Wells Fargo mail
stages began running from the Missouri to Salt
Lake and California. The trail in full
tide of life, filed with gold seekers from the Mis-
from the Missouri to the Pacific.
1S5S-September 15-The first overland stage
coach left San Francisco for the East and on