THE GLORY TRAIL

in these days of scientific marvels when a rocket can land on the moon quicker than you can get a railroad reservation it's not easy to imagine the difficulties of transportation and communication in the pioneer days of the American West those people went four months without hearing from friends or loved ones or getting word on what curious thing the government might be doing 104 years ago when the Marquis de Lafayette came back to visit the young Republic he helped flustered the only reasonable way to get to the west coast was by see if the Marquis had asked anybody the quickest overland route the answer might well have been you can't get there from here you today it's hard for most of us to picture a wilderness on such a grand scale miles upon miles of it still exists silent defiant and for voting but we look down on it from a jetliner flying at 600 miles an hour and it's only a splash of green and over like everywhere else in the world time and space in the West have been compressed into a cocktail and a dinner these are the just rewards of progress of course and nobody in his right mind wants to walk or ride a mule but who anymore ever learns anything on a journey or holds a special service to give thanks for getting there alive these things probably aren't very important but they helped establish the hazy background on the monumental neuro of amazing change it was not a small world or even one world a hundred years ago and the Westerner didn't care very much what happened in Russia or China or New York or on the other side of the mountain and that's the big difference between yesterday and today for the most part the west nerd still doesn't care but he knows he has to anyway you look at it the true conqueror of the American West was of the horse by far the most important import the new world ever received from the old the early explorers lost or left horses that multiplied on the plains and soon became the Indians most valuable possessions as a means of transportation as a supplier of power for primitive mining operations and as a carrier of freight and messages the horse and his relatives were indispensable in the early West his cousin the mule was more sure-footed and possibly a little smarter and sometimes could be coaxed into pulling a heavier load but the horse is the real symbol of the West the bottom part of a real-life centaur that conquered half a continent undoubtedly more affection and more profanity were lavished on the pearl that ancient beast of burden and leisurely gate that was the miners best friend the borough hall the prospectors personal belongings his tools his firewood and if the prospector ever found any his gold rich or on occasion the boro even carried the prospector himself one of the most famous of all western Burroughs was an animal named prunes so called because once he almost foundered himself by eating a crate of dried prunes this ol Jack lived and worked in the fair play Alma area and the Rocky Mountains of Colorado spending most of his life packing or from such mines as the Dolly Parton mosquito and home sweet home prunes may be the only Berlin the world-honored bio monument erected to his memory when he became too old and people to work and could barely taught her around it was agreed that the kindest thing to do would be to put him out of his misery the miners who remembered the old days erected a monument to their friend and all the other faithful little critters next to the horse and his cousins probably the most important boom to Western transportation was the Conestoga wagon that big vehicle was a canvas top that you can see in the movies this wagon was almost entirely identified with the excitement of the Wild West but actually it is older than the United States itself the Conestoga one of the earliest inventions on the American continent came out of the Conestoga Valley of Pennsylvania General Braddock used the Conestoga in the battles against the French and Indians in the middle of the 18th century the Lycans were so big and so hard to handle on rough terrain that Braddock took a long cruise of British seamen to help drag the wagons through the wilderness the Conestoga was distinctive because of the lines of the bed front and rear were a full 12 inches higher than the middle giving the wagon a boat like appearance and providing a means to keep loads from shifting violently on uneven terrain it had wheels 5 to 6 feet tall with iron tires up to 6 inches wide and it would carry as much as 3 tons in 1822 Captain William Becnel organized the first freight wagon train from the Missouri River to Santa Fe New Mexico the following year there were two expeditions taking cotton and other dry goods for exchange for horses mules furs and silver and one of the great trade routes of the West was established the great trail westward were the Santa Fe into the southwest the famous oregon trail that crossed through wyoming and branched off to lead to California and the smoky hill which follows a river of the same name and led him to colorado there was no such thing as a short and easy journey from Kansas City to Santa Fe for instance was 841 miles and on a good day a wagon train might make 10 but it was a profitable venture for the traitors and the ox train was not displaced until sometime after the atchison topeka and santa fe railroad was completed the Santa Fe Trail created many giants of the American frontier but the most remarkable outgrowth of his burgeoning business was the firm of Russell majors dois del their business prospered and in 1856 they were operating from 300 to 350 wagons and turning in a profit of some 300,000 dollars at the peak of their success they signed on to supply general Albert Sidney Johnston who had been ordered to Utah to put down Mormon unrest Russell majors and Waddell supplied 2,000 wagons 40,000 oxen and 3,500 men for this major operation the payroll was nearly two million dollars and the company lost a half million none of which ever was reimbursed by the government when the dispute was settled with the Mormons the wagons were not needed anymore and were sold at auction in Utah bringing an average of ten dollars for a wagon originally valued that five hundred dollars or more many of the oxen being moved to California died in severe winter storms but despite this the firm managed to absorb the losses and remain solvent that is a remarkable commentary when you consider it if Russell majors and Waddell had a way to get a cost-plus contract they would have gotten rich traffic on the Santa Fe Trail was heavy in 1865 at least 1,000 wagons set off from the Missouri River for the colorful rowdy Mexican city of the Southwest the following year it was estimated that between five and six thousand Hawks teams passed over that route but this was mainly a trail of Commerce the people seeking gold or homes went along the Oregon Trail some historians like to call this the central Overland Road a term which never caught on with the public if this name means that the Pioneers went in all directions after crossing the mountains it must be valid but the travelers who knew where they were going in the first place didn't care what they call it the Oregon Trail began at various points along the Missouri River converging in the vicinity of Fort Kearney nearly 200 miles less to the present city of omaha nebraska from that point the trail moved Western generally along the south bank of the Platte River farther on the road clarks one trail leading to Oregon the other to california by 1865 this trails branches had been extended from Jews Berg in the northeast corner of colorado to sacramento california by way of Denver Salt Lake City and Carson City in that year the traffic was much heavier than the travel on the Santa Fe Trail one on the spot historian wrote that between 400 and 500 wagons passed a given point on the Oregon Trail each day and that often there were as many as a thousand the wagons are gone now and it is very likely that you can attend the Fandango and Santa Fe without being killed but much remains the same in 1865 merchandise shipped from New York to atchison kansas carried a freight rate of two dollars and twenty-five cents for each 100 pounds from Atchison to Denver this was kicked up to $15 although the difference today is not as great there is still enough disparity to annoy the Westerner and prolong his inherited feeling that he lives in another world in the eastern part of the United States there was considerable commerce on the rivers and canals and as far west as the Great Mississippi in the Missouri the Commerce flourished but as a general rule the rivers of the West were not suitable for navigation at one time or another boat supplied parts of the Colorado the flat and the Rio Grande but seldom to the general satisfaction of the customers eventually the trade died out but back in the West the big thing was the stagecoach that marvelous vehicle that found it across the plains at great speed sometimes outrunning the Indians but periodically surrendering the treasure box to wylie alcohol the one you see in the movies is the Concord coach the most famous of them all although this was by no means the only conveyance for commercial passenger travel also used were the rectangular Troy coaches another box shaped vehicle known as the celerity wagon analyte stage with narrow wheels and tires that was called a mud wagon this was favored in areas frequently mired in deep mud and on the winding sharp curve rows of the mountain country the Concord was the pride of craftsman at the abbot downing and company of Concord New Hampshire it turned out many kinds of vehicles but the Concord coach was the deluxe model in the days before metal Springs could be trusted the conquerors well-built oval shaped body was supported by heavy leather straps which were called thorough braces these allows the coach to roll instead of jerk and bounce on the rough roads of the time they also help to keep the coach fairly stable despite the position of the wheels between 1858 and 1900 approximately 600 Concord coaches were produced by the company and it is assumed that most of them were for use in the West they weighed about 2,500 pounds and cost around $1,500 most of those remaining today are in museums or gainfully employed in Hollywood like the freighting business the stage lines fostered legends in the West if a town sprung up around a gold mine and it was considered worth visiting that town soon had a stage line in California the veteran stage driver named James Perch consolidated several smaller lines into the California stage company which ran passenger and mail service from San Diego California to San Antonio Texas birch used mules and for that reason his Texas run was referred to as the jackass mail in 1857 the gentleman in Congress facing up to the fact that a railroad link between the east and west might take a few more years established the first truly transcontinental stagecoach service the company which was awarded the contract was called the Overland Mail company but was better known because of its President John Butterfield as the butterfield overland mail its main difficulty was that it ran an oxbow route from Memphis and st. Louis down through Texas across Arizona and winding up at San Francisco covering a total of two thousand seven hundred ninety-five miles postage was ten cents per letter and the passenger fare from st. Louis to San Francisco was two hundred dollars the trip was miserable russell majors and Waddell were mixed up in much of the exciting history of the West but nothing was more spectacular than their short-term venture into a monumental enterprise known as the Pony Express the Pony Express was first proposed in 1859 during the last gasps of peace before the outbreak of the Civil War his promoters saw it as a means of providing rapid communication between the North and the loyal forces on the west coast who were trying to keep California out of the clutches of the rebellious south like the Conestoga the Pony Express is an institution forever associated with the West but it wasn't something that Russell majors and Waddell just thought up overnight for 30 years newspapers in the eastern United States have been using relay riders to carry important news dispatches but the idea was older than that Genghis Khan the Mongol Conqueror used such a courier service in the 11th century nonetheless nobody managed to leave behind the history as colorful as that of the Pony Express it was launched as a private enterprise on april three 1860 riders started out simultaneously from st. Joseph Missouri and Sacramento California determined to make stagecoach mail seem as slow as a letter sent by ship and they created something of a sensation the first run westbound took nine days and 23 hours cutting a full 10 days off the fastest stagecoach record the riders young fellows who averaged about 125 pounds in weight carried 15 to 20 pounds of mail postage was five dollars for each half ounce and people in a hurry were glad to pay for it the riders earned one hundred two hundred and a quarter a month depending upon the dangers and difficulties of each run and they had to take a solemn oath that they would lead clean lives half staining from profanity and drink historians are generally agreed that there is no reason to believe that any employee ever paid much attention to the average run where the writers was about 75 miles and they changed horses every 10 miles the best record for the service was the delivery of President Lincoln's inaugural address in 1861 the copy of this was taken from st. Joseph Missouri to Sacramento California a distance of 1966 miles in seven days and 17 hours the hero of this run was Tony Bob Haslam who covered 120 miles in eight hours and 10 minutes among the other famous writers was Buffalo Bill Cody who once made a run of 322 miles the Pony Express lasted 19 months giving up the day the transcontinental telegraph was put into service but in that time its riders covered six hundred and fifty thousand miles delivering nearly 35,000 letters with the loss of only one male the whole venture was a financial failure but because its writers has successfully managed to cross all kinds of terrain in every condition of whether it was one more proof that a Transcontinental Railroad was feasible in a few years this was a reality the railroad and the Telegraph finally length east and west together bringing the remote westerner news of the world whether he wanted it or not but preceding these milestones of progress was another grand experiment the u.s. camel brigade in 1853 when Jefferson Davis was appointed Secretary of War he asked Congress for a camel unit in the to supply military posts and to mount fast-moving patrols to combat the indians congress appropriated thirty thousand dollars to send an expedition to constantinople to purchase and return with some Cowell's when they docked the crimean war was raging and the curious Americans went right into the thick of it to find out from the British what luck they were having with the camel debris said the camels were indispensable the average camel could easily pack 600 pounds of supplies 25 to 30 miles a day and troops mounted on the long legged creatures could move 70 miles and 12 hours the expedition rounded up 33 camels and departed for home the entry of the caravan into San Antonio stampeded every horse and mule with insider smell and didn't do a lot for some of the citizens who were unaccustomed to such spectacles the camels were put in a camp near San Antonio and for the next few months didn't do anything except provided a circus for the curious the period of idleness for the caravan ended in June of 1857 the camel brigade was ordered to survey a new wagon road from Fort Defiance on the western edge of New Mexico to the Colorado River the caravan left San Antonio in June and arrived at T home south east of bakersfield california in october there were many hardships but the expedition made it through without any fatalities or serious injury when winter set in they returned over the same routes to prove that the camels could operate in almost any kind of weather and that for all practical purposes closed the books on the camel Brigade official interest never intense was lessened in the face of war threats and forgotten entirely when the war finally came there was a brief flurry of citizen enthusiasm for the camels as cargo packers in the West but nothing much ever came of it many of the camels that were privately owned escaped or were driven away to roam the desert and periodically scare the Wits out of some poor Indian who came upon them without warning finally the last of the government animals were auctioned off to small circuses and other enterprises and that was the end of the experiment the Wild West with its camels ox trains and Pony Express riders seems extremely remote in these days of jet planes moon rockets and other marvel yet somehow the spirit is the same everything is a risk but there's never any trouble finding people to take it today we can go farther in two hours and the Hardy pioneers could travel in six months never suffer from thirst and hardly ever see an indians on the other hand no low flying Conestoga wagon ever fell in the ocean or took off the top of a mountain nonetheless the old days are gone forever and nobody wants them back although periodically somebody drives an ox team to the opening of a fair and everywhere in the West there is an annual celebration of some kind that brings out the nostalgia for the past for example each year over mosquito fast in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado there is a burro race reviving the days when the Pioneer prospectors hurried from one Farrell is placed to another in search of gold and silver this is a grant Western affair except that most of the modern-day prospectors suit up for the event in tennis shoes and baseball caps and there if you think about it is the whole history of change in the West you this is n ET national Educational Television