In 1846 young historian Francis Parkman, whose journal, _The Oregon Trail_, would become one of the classics of our literature, made his famous trip to Fort Laramie. After camping “by the well-known spring on Scott’s Bluff” he rode out in the morning and “descending the western side of the bluff,” came upon “old Smoke’s lodges.” Here he launches into his first exciting description of a Sioux encampment, with its handsome lazy warriors, dusky maidens, and the “old withered crones” who did all the work! Also in 1846, after mob violence against their city of Nauvoo, Ill., the Mormons began their great western trek. They encamped for the winter on the Missouri at Kanesville (Council Bluffs) and Winter Quarters (Omaha), where hundreds died of disease and exposure. In the spring of 1847 the Mormon pioneers, 144 strong under Brigham Young, traveled to their promised land, Great Salt Lake Valley in Utah. Avoiding the “gentiles” who followed the Oregon Trail up the south bank of the Platte, the Mormons remained on the north bank until they reached Fort Laramie, using the old trappers’ trail to Fort Atkinson. Probably no expedition in history has been better chronicled. Among the many meticulous Mormon journalists was William Clayton, who later wrote one of the better trail guides. On May 27 he reported that the company “passed the meridian of the northernmost peaks of Scott’s Bluffs.” The view toward these bluffs, “resembling ancient ruins,” was “majestic and sublime.” The Mormon emigration almost monopolized the trail in 1848. Some 4,000 of the faithful journeyed to Utah up the north bank, opposite the bluff, while a comparative handful of emigrants followed the usual route to Oregon. But this was the quiet before the storm. In 1848 James Marshall discovered gold on Captain Sutter’s ranch. The news traveled by fast clipper ship around Cape Horn to New York City. The California gold rush would soon burst in a torrent up the North Platte migration corridor. _Scotts Bluff and The Forty-niners_ Early in the spring the Forty-niners converged by steamboat upon the Missouri River towns of Independence, Westport, and St. Joseph; assembled wagons, animals, and provisions; and organized into companies. Eager to reach the new Eldorado, they were undismayed by the prospective 2,000-mile trek across hostile plains and mountains. On May 1, as soon as the prairie grass was green, the great gold rush began. The Oregon Trail became the California Road. The trail from Independence, up the Kansas and Blue Rivers, joined the trail from St. Joseph near present Marysville, Kans., then followed up the Little Blue to its source to reach the “Coast of Nebraska,” historic Platte River. Just beyond was Fort Kearny, established in 1847, now commanded by the same Captain Bonneville who first took wagons across the Continental Divide 17 years before.