Scotts Bluff National Monument, Nebraska

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Stewart L. Udall, Secretary
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE Conrad L. Wirth, Director
HISTORICAL HANDBOOK NUMBER TWENTY-EIGHT
This publication is one of a series of handbooks describing the historical and archeological areas in the National Park System administered by the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior. It is printed by the Government Printing Office and may be purchased from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D. C. Price 30 cents.
By Merrill J. Mattes
NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES NO. 28 Washington, D. C., 1958 (Reprint 1961)
The National Park System, of which Scotts Bluff National Monument is a unit, is dedicated to conserving the scenic, scientific, and historic heritage of the United States for the benefit and enjoyment of its people.
Scotts Bluff Visitor Center. Courtesy, Christian Studio, Gering, Nebr.
SCOTTS BLUFF was a celebrated landmark on the great North Platte Valley trunkline of “the Oregon Trail,” the traditional route of overland migration to Oregon, California, and Utah. Today the massive castellated bluff looks down upon concrete highways, railways, airports, irrigated farms, and bustling communities of the mid-20th century; but it is the same awe-inspiring sentinel which 100 years ago watched the passage of countless trains of ox-drawn covered wagons, and the twinkling of many campfires. Scotts Bluff National Monument keeps alive the epic story of our ancestors who dared cross the wilderness of plains and mountains to plant the western stars in the American flag.
Present Scotts Bluff is but a part of the historic “Scott’s Bluffs” named for Hiram Scott, an employee of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, whose skeleton was found in the vicinity in 1829. The first known published reference is to be found in The Adventures of Captain Bonneville , by Washington Irving, published in 1837. The first map to show this landmark is in Robert Greenhow’s Memoir, Historical and Political on the Northwest Coast of North America , published in 1840. It appeared next in the Fremont map of 1843, which became basic for later emigrant guides.