The Last American Frontier

by Frederic L. Paxson

The forty-second parallel route was surveyed by Lieutenant E. G. Beckwith, of the third artillery, in the summer of 1854. East of Fort Bridger, the War Department felt it unnecessary to make a special survey, since Frémont had traversed and described the country several times and Stansbury had surveyed it carefully as recently as 1849–1850. At the beginning of his campaign Beckwith was at Salt Lake. During April he visited the Green River Valley and Fort Bridger, proving by his surveys the entire practicability of railway construction here. In May he skirted the south end of Great Salt Lake and passed along the Humboldt to the Sacramento Valley. He had no important adventures and was impressed most by the squalor of the digger Indians, whose grass-covered, beehive-shaped "wick-ey-ups" were frequently seen. As his band approached the Indians would fearfully cache their belongings in the undergrowth. In the morning "it was indeed a novel and ludicrous sight of wretchedness to see them approach their bush and attempt, slyly (for they still tried to conceal from me what they were about), to repossess themselves of their treasures, one bringing out a piece of old buckskin, a couple of feet square, smoked, greasy, and torn; another a half dozen rabbit-skins in an equally filthy condition, sewed together, which he would swing over his shoulders by a string—his only blanket or clothing; while a third brought out a blue string, which he girded about him and walked away in full dress—one of the lords of the soil." It needed no special emphasis in Beckwith's report to prove that a railway could follow this middle route, since thousands of emigrants had a personal knowledge of its conditions.

Fort Snelling

From an old photograph, loaned by Horace B. Hudson, of Minneapolis.

Beckwith, who started his forty-second parallel survey from Salt Lake City, had reached that point as one of the officers in Gunnison's unfortunate party. Captain J. W. Gunnison had followed Governor Stevens into St. Louis in 1853. His field of exploration, the route of 38°-39°, was by no means new to him since he had been to Utah with Stansbury in 1849 and 1850, and had already written one of the best books upon the Mormon settlement. He carried his party up the Missouri to a fitting-out camp just below the mouth of the Kansas River, five miles from Westport. Like other commanders he spent much time at the start in "breaking in wild mules," with which he advanced in rain and mud on June 23. For more than two weeks his party moved in parallel columns along the Santa Fé road and the Smoky Hill fork of the Kansas. Near Walnut creek on the Santa Fé road they united, and soon were following the Arkansas River towards the mountains. At Fort Atkinson they found a horde of the plains Indians waiting for Major Fitzpatrick to make a treaty with them. Always their observations were taken with regularity. One day Captain Gunnison spent in vain efforts to secure specimens of the elusive prairie dog. On August 1, when they were ready to leave the Arkansas and plunge southwest into the Sangre de Cristo range, they were gratified "by a clear and beautiful view of the Spanish Peaks."

This thirty-ninth parallel route, which had been a favorite with Frémont, crossed the divide near the head of the Rio Grande. Its grades, which were difficult and steep at best, followed the Huerfano Valley and Cochetopa Pass. Across the pass, Gunnison began his descent of the arid alkali valley of the Uncompahgre,—a valley to-day about to blossom as the rose because of the irrigation canal and tunnel bringing to it the waters of the neighboring Gunnison River. With heavy labor, intense heat, and weakening teams, Gunnison struggled on through September and October towards Salt Lake in Utah territory. Near Sevier Lake he lost his life. Before daybreak, on October 26, he and a small detachment of men were surprised by a band of young Paiute. When the rest of his party hurried up to the rescue, they found his body "pierced with fifteen arrows," and seven of his men lying dead around him. Beckwith, who succeeded to the command, led the remainder of the party to Salt Lake City, where public opinion was ready to charge the Mormons with the murder. Beckwith believed this to be entirely false, and made use of the friendly assistance of Brigham Young, who persuaded the chiefs of the tribe to return the instruments and records which had been stolen from the party.

The route surveyed by Captain Gunnison passed around the northern end of the ravine of the Colorado River, which almost completely separates the Southwest from the United States. Farther south, within the United States, were only two available points at which railways could cross the cañon, at Fort Yuma and near the Mojave River. Towards these crossings the thirty-fifth and thirty-second parallel surveys were directed.

Second only to Governor Stevens's in its extent was the exploration conducted by Lieutenant A. W. Whipple from Fort Smith on the Arkansas to Los Angeles along the thirty-fifth parallel. Like that of Governor Stevens this route was not the channel of any regular traffic, although later it was to have some share in the organized overland commerce. Here also was found a line that contained only two or three serious obstacles to be overcome. Whipple's instructions planned for him to begin his observations at the Mississippi, but he believed that the navigable Arkansas River and the railways already projected in that state made it needless to commence farther east than Fort Smith, on the edge of the Indian Country. He began his survey on July 14, 1853. His westward march was for two months up the right bank of the Canadian River, as it traversed the Choctaw and Chickasaw reserves, to the hundredth meridian, where it emerged from the panhandle of Texas, and across the panhandle into New Mexico. After crossing the upper waters of the Rio Pecos he reached the Rio Grande at Albuquerque, where his party tarried for a month or more, working over their observations, making local explorations, and sending back to Washington an account of their proceedings thus far. Towards the middle of November they started on toward the Colorado Chiquita and the Bill Williams Fork, through "a region over which no white man is supposed to have passed." The severest difficulties of the trip were found near the valley of the Colorado River, which was entered at the junction of the Bill Williams Fork and followed north for several days. A crossing here was made near the supposed mouth of the Mojave River at a place where porphyritic and trap dykes, outcropping, gave rise to the name of the Needles. The river was crossed February 27, 1854, three weeks before the party reached Los Angeles.

South of the route of Lieutenant Whipple, the thirty-second parallel survey was run to the Fort Yuma crossing of the Colorado River. No attempt was made in this case at a comprehensive survey under a single leader. Instead, the section from the Rio Grande at El Paso to the Red River at Preston, Texas, was run by John Pope, brevet captain in the topographical engineers, in the spring of 1854. Lieutenant J. G. Parke carried the line at the same time from the Pimas villages on the Gila to the Rio Grande. West of the Pimas villages to the Colorado, a reconnoissance made by Lieutenant-colonel Emory in 1847 was drawn upon. The lines in California were surveyed by yet a different party. Here again an easy route was discovered to exist. Within the states of California and Oregon various connecting lines were surveyed by parties under Lieutenant R. S. Williamson in 1855.

The evidence accumulated by the Pacific railway surveys began to pour in upon the War Department in the spring of 1854. Partial reports at first, elaborate and minute scientific articles following later, made up a series which by the close of the decade filled the twelve enormous volumes of the published papers. Rarely have efforts so great accomplished so little in the way of actual contribution to knowledge. The chief importance of the surveys was in proving by scientific observation what was already a commonplace among laymen—that the continent was traversable in many places, and that the incidental problems of railway construction were in finance rather than in engineering. The engineers stood ready to build the road any time and almost anywhere.