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Dr. Elijah White, the new agent for the Oregon Indians, lead a party of 112 westward in 1842. Among them was Medorem Crawford, who described Scotts Bluff as "the most romantic scenery I ever saw." Lansford W. Hastings, who was to write one of the first emigrant guidebooks, was also of this party. Lt. John C. Fremont's first expedition to the Rocky Mountains traveled up the Platte in 1842; his official report would likewise become a standard reference. He described Scotts Bluff as "an escarpment on the river of about 900 yards in length" which "forces the road to make a considerable circuit over the uplands." He found the plain between the bluffs and Chimney Rock almost entirely covered with driftwood, testifying to a recent flood.

In 1843 Scotts Bluff witnessed the first mass migration to Oregon; it was promoted by Marcus Whitman. In May more than 1,000 persons, including 130 women and 610 children, left Independence, Mo., for the long trek overland. This well-organized expedition, with military rules to ensure protection, an elected captain, and division into companies, set the pattern for the hundreds of emigrant trains to follow. The elected captain was Peter Burnett who was to become the first Governor of California in 1850. The "Cow Column," the last and slowest of the 1843 companies, has achieved fame through the writings of Jesse Applegate. Overton Johnson relates that the train reached camp "by a fine Spring, at the foot of Scott's Bluffs" on July 9.

Close behind the emigrant families came an elaborate hunting party, led by Sir William Stewart and William Sublette, making their farewell visit to the mountains. Baptiste Charbonneau, the infant son who had been carried by Sacajawea on the Lewis and Clark Expedition, was hired as a driver. William Clark Kennerly's reminiscences of this journey tells of a frightening incident that occurred near Scotts Bluff:

Far out on the Platte one morning, while making preparations for our daily hunt, we descried coming toward us a herd, which I can state without any exageration must have numbered a million. The pounding of their hooves on the hard prairie sounded like the roaring of a mighty ocean, surging over the land and sweeping everything before it. Here was more game than we bargained for, and the predicament in which we now found ourselves gave us much cause for alarm. On they came, and as we were directly in their path and on the bank of the river, there was great danger of our being swept over. This danger was averted only by our exerting every effort to turn them off in another direction; and as it took the herd two entire days to pass, even at quite a rapid gait, we were kept busy placing guards of shouting, gesticulating men in the daytime and building huge bonfires at night.

In the summer of 1844 four emigrant trains passed Scotts Bluff bound for Oregon. One of these was piloted by James Clyman, who had first seen the bluff 20 years before on his long hike from Independence Rock to Fort Atkinson. In his diary Clyman wrote:

The trek to Oregon in 1845 dwarfed all that had gone before. An informal count at Fort Laramie revealed that 5,000 people and 500 ox-drawn wagons were on the march. The charms of Scotts Bluff, and the tragic tale of its namesake, were not lost on the many diarists, among them Joel Palmer, who credits "Scott's Bluffs" with a good spring and an abundance of wood and grass. Below the bluffs, says Palmer,

We met a company of mountaineers from Fort Laramie, who had started for the settlements early in the season, with flat-boats loaded with buffalo robes, and other articles of Indian traffic. The river became so low, that they were obliged to lay by; part of the company had returned to the fort for teams; others were at the boat landing, while fifteen of the party were footing their way to the States. They were a jolly set of fellows....

In this same big year the United States Government sent its first military expedition up the Platte. Guided by Fitzpatrick, Col. S. W. Kearny led five companies of the First Dragoons to South Pass. A few days ahead of the Oregon Trek, on June 11 they encamped "below Scotts Bluffs, and directly opposite a large village of Dacotah Indians."

... that immense and celebrated pile, called "Scott's Bluffs," advances across the plain nearly to the water's edge. If one could increase the size of the Alhambra of Grenada, or the Castle of Heidelberg, which Professor Longfellow has so poetically and so graphically described,--twenty fold in every way but in height,--he could form some idea of the magnitude and splendor of this chef d'oeuvre of Nature at Palace-Building.

In 1846, the Oregon Territory, long in dispute with Great Britain, was finally acquired by peaceful compromise. The emigrant families who had passed Scotts Bluff had ensured this outcome by tipping the scales of population! Meanwhile, in May 1846, the United States had declared war on Mexico and, in the name of "manifest destiny," set about adding California and the Southwest to its territory.

The emigration of 1846 was lighter than that of the preceding year. One company, the Donner party, met appalling disaster in the early autumn snows of the Sierra Nevadas. Edward Bryant, a future Governor of California, and J. Quinn Thornton both wrote the most extravagant and fanciful descriptions of Scotts Bluff and nearby hills. They imagined "the ruins of some ancient vast city," complete with domes, towers, temples, minarets, amphitheaters, frowning parapets, and even "a royal bath," a fittingly picturesque backdrop for the lingering death of "the unhappy trapper" who crawled here after being abandoned by "inhuman companions."

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 and Winter Quarters , 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.

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.

Onward from Fort Kearny the white-hooded prairie schooners crawled like an army of gigantic ants along the south bank of the Platte. The Forty-niners were awed by the vast emptiness of the treeless plains, the endless horizon, the shimmering haze, and the sudden, drenching thunderstorms. Pushing beyond the forks of the Platte, they followed the margin of the South Platte to near the present town of Ogallala, Nebr. Here, at what was called Lower California Crossing, they ferried or swam the river amid scenes of shouting confusion, then headed for the North Platte.

Hundreds of extant emigrant journals vividly describe the classic trunk route of the Oregon-California Trail up the North Platte. From the plateau the trail descended rather abruptly via steep Windlass Hill down Ash Hollow to the river. Hugging the south bank, the trail passed many curious hills and formations which afforded welcome relief from the monotonous scenery. Courthouse and Jail Rocks near present Bridgeport, Chimney Rock near Bayard, and Scotts Bluff were among the most notable of these landmarks, which so frequently aroused poetic fancies and rapturous descriptions in emigrant journals.

At Scotts Bluff in 1849 the trail made a wide detour, south of the present monument, up Gering Valley, and over Robidoux Pass, then northwest to regain the Platte near the mouth of Horse Creek.

Sixty miles beyond the bluff the Forty-niners came to historic adobe-walled Fort Laramie , which was in the very process of being purchased by the United States Army. The Stars and Stripes were hauled up at the fort on June 26, and the army immediately began the construction of new buildings. Pausing here only briefly to rest and obtain provisions, the emigrants continued west and north via the North Platte and the Sweetwater toward the Continental Divide, guided by such landmarks as Laramie Peak, Red Butte, Independence Rock, Devil's Gate, and Split Rock. Just beyond broad, barren South Pass, flanked by the snow-covered Wind River Mountains, the Forty-niners reached the edge of the Pacific drainage. They still had a grueling journey over mountain and desert before they would reach the end of their rainbow.

The California gold rush of 1849 and ensuing years, in addition to being on a much larger scale, was entirely different in character from the earlier Oregon migration. Oregon travelers were families, seeking farms; most of the California emigrants were young men, unmarried or unaccompanied by wives, who were seeking a quick fortune. Young women who did make the hazardous journey were besieged with suitors. There were weddings and honeymoons on the trail. There are also records of gold rush babies born in wagon beds.

Asiatic cholera was the greatest killer. Ships docking at New Orleans brought infected people who carried the dread disease by steamboat up the Mississippi to St. Louis. There, the disease spread by contagion to people in the Missouri River outfitting towns. As the tired Argonauts struggled across the unfamiliar Nebraska landscape, the disease raced like wildfire among them, decimating their number. Children were orphaned. The husband who buried his wife might himself be dead the next day. Numerous diaries record inscriptions on the crude headboards of the hastily dug shallow graves. Hundreds of burials took place in the North Platte Valley between Ash Hollow and Fort Laramie. Several have been identified at Scotts Bluff.

Many of those who escaped the cholera plague were confronted with other killers--the rugged terrain, inexperience, carelessness, exhaustion. Some dropped by the wayside from sheer fatigue. Others died of pneumonia, or were drowned at the river crossings, or shot themselves with unfamiliar firearms, got run over by the big lumbering wagon wheels, or were gored by unruly oxen. Another menace was the buffalo, which was hunted as a fine source of food. Unless approached gingerly, big herds of these creatures would sometimes stampede, making the earth tremble, trampling to death the unwary hunter. In the desert of the Great Basin, more of the travelers were killed by the intense heat, alkali dust, and parching thirst. The trek of the Forty-niners was not for long a gay escapade; it became a grim survival of the fittest.

Contrary to popular impression, the number of emigrants who died at the hands of marauding Indians was negligible. The Diggers along the Humboldt River in Nevada accounted for some stragglers; the Plains Indians were a bit thievish but peaceful--for a time, at least. True, at nights the wagons were arranged in a circular compound and guards were posted; but an Indian attack on the emigrants Hollywood style, was a rarity.

Although visions of an Indian raid served as a healthy influence on emigrant vigilance, daily preoccupation with the necessities of life was a more pressing concern. There were three primary needs--food, grazing, and good campsites. Although some of the better organized companies had ample provisions, many others miscalculated and suffered accordingly. True, buffalo, antelope, and other game were hunted; but the wildlife was frightened by the endless, noisy, dusty column, and the hunters who galloped forth with romantic notions of a dashing buffalo hunt often came back empty-handed.

The ideal campsite would boast a good spring and a generous supply of timber for campfires and the repair of wagon gear. There were a few such campsites--Scotts Bluff with its springs and its ponderosa pine and cedars was one of the best--but these soon suffered from the pressure of converging crowds. Clear springs were muddied, the sparse groves of timber were chopped away, and the grass vanished from overgrazing or withered in the summer sun.

A typical wagon train with all its encumbrances, plus quicksand, mud, creek crossings, and other difficulties of terrain, could make but 15 to 20 miles per day over the level plains. In rough mountain country, progress was even slower; and there had to be frequent halts to rest worn-out, emaciated stock and to mend faulty gear. Thus it took perhaps 4 months for a train to reach a California gold camp. Some were later still, and had to be rescued from early snows of the Sierras. A disconsolate few would spend the winter at Fort Laramie or Salt Lake City.

Wherever and whenever they arrived, the Forty-niners were in scarecrow condition with few worldly possessions. Stoves, anvils, plows, furniture, and hardware of every description were thrown overboard from prairie schooners to ease the strain on the animals. Often this sacrifice was in vain; dead horses and oxen, littered the road to California gold.

How many Forty-niners? The population of California increased some 40,000 in 1849; it is estimated that 15,000 sailed around Cape Horn or made sailing connections at Panama; of 30,000 who went overland, perhaps 5,000 died en route. In seven succeeding years, 1850-56, the California gold rush was resumed each spring. No official census was possible, but a register kept at Fort Laramie helps to estimate that during the period 150,000 people journeyed overland westward. The peak year was 1852, when an estimated 50,000 emigrants poured through Scotts Bluff Pass.

Today the hills of the North Platte Valley are not accounted among the scenic wonders of the United States; in Oregon Trail days, to emigrants who had been bored with the flatness and drabness of the Platte scenery, and who would be too exhausted later to appreciate the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, the landmarks along the Platte had a captivating charm. Courthouse Rock and Chimney Rock were the appetizers; Scotts Bluff was the grand climax.

A typical journal entry of 1849 is that of Alonzo Delano:

June 9: The wind blew cold and unpleasant as we left our pretty encampment this morning for Scott's Bluff, a few miles beyond. The bare hills and water-worn rocks on our left began to assume many fantastic shapes, and after raising a gentle elevation, a most extraordinary sight presented itself to our view. A basin-shaped valley, bounded by high rocky hills, lay before us, perhaps twelve miles in length, by six or eight broad. The perpendicular sides of the mountains presented the appearance of castles, forts, towers, verandas, and chimneys, with a blending of Asiatic and European architecture, and it required an effort to believe that we were not in the vicinity of some ancient and deserted town. It seemed as if the wand of a magician had passed over a city, and like that in the Arabian Nights, had converted all living things to stone.

Recent research has cleared up long-standing confusion about the geography of the Oregon-California Trail in the vicinity of Scotts Bluff. Today Scotts Bluff is understood to mean the large bluff within the national monument, between the river badlands and Mitchell Pass, which separates it from a ridge extending westward at a right angle; about 10 miles south of the river, parallel to this ridge, lies the Wildcat Hills, which extend for over 25 miles, from Chimney Rock to Robidoux Pass . Because of this modern nomenclature, some historians have misunderstood the emigrant diaries, failing to realize that in Oregon Trail days Scotts Bluff, frequently spelled "Scott's Bluffs," commonly referred to all these hills, including the Wildcat Hills. William Kelly, above-mentioned, showed remarkable acumen in likening the outline of Scotts Bluff to a shepherd's crook, with the present Wildcat Hills as the straight staff and present Scotts Bluff as the flair at the end of the crook.

Similarly, the identity of the pass at Scotts Bluff has frequently been misunderstood. In historic times there were actually two different passes here. The first, which would be at the bow of the shepherd's crook, is now called Robidoux Pass, and this was predominantly used during the period up to and including 1849. In October 1850, Government explorer Capt. Howard Stansbury, returning from Salt Lake, reported the first evidence of wagon wheels through the gap now called Mitchell Pass.

This morning there arose a heavy clowd between us and Scotts Bluff, which hid it entirely from view, and as it rolled away Showing first its lofty peak, which ascended Some 300 feet in the air, and which was covered with Small Pine or cedar trees, the scene was highly Novel, and no less beautiful we could see as it were, standing upon a clowd, a huge rock, covered with small trees, and as the clowd would rise and fall, it presented mutch the appearance of a Theater, the trees presented the appearance of the actors, the Rock, of the Stage--the clowd of the curtain, and nature itself was the tragedy they were Acting, each one playing there parts to perfection.

In 1851 use between the two passes was perhaps equally divided. William C. Lobenstine writes:

... We approached the Scotch Bluffs , which we saw the evening before golden in the light of the setting sun, and our whole attention was attracted by the grandeur of the former, still more beautiful country. The appearance of these sand hills, although from far off like solid rock, has a very accurate resemblance to a fortification or stronghold of the feudal barons of the middle age, of which many a reminder is yet to be met with along the bank of the Rhine. The rock itself is separated nearly at its middle, having a pass here about fifty to sixty feet wide, ascending at both sides perpendicular to a height of three to four hundred feet. The passage through here was only made possible in 1851 and is now preferred by nearly all the emigrants, cutting off a piece of eight miles from the old road. We passed through without any difficulty and after having passed another blacksmith shop and trading post, which are very numerous, protection being secured to them by the military down at Fort Laramie, we encamped for the night.

With the migration of 1852, the historical spotlight permanently shifted to Mitchell Pass. During the early fifties the California migration reached its peak; the charms of Scotts Bluff and the peculiarities of the new pass were not lost on the new crop of journalists.

It was in 1852, apparently, that the little-used name "Capitol Hills" was first applied to Scotts Bluff by Hosea Horn and other guidebook writers. The origin of this name is suggested in the Sexton diary of June 10:

Made our noon halt opposite Scott's Bluff, altogether the most symmetrical in form and the most stupendous in size of any we have seen. One of them is close in its resemblance to the dome of the Capitol in Washington.

There is a pass through that is guarded on one side by Sugar Loaf Rock, on the other by one that resembles a square house with an observatory. It is certainly the most magnificent thing I ever saw.

To summarize, Robidoux Pass, 8 miles west of monument headquarters, was used by the Forty-niners and most of those who preceded them, including the fur traders, the emigrants to Oregon, Francis Parkman, Kearny's Dragoons, and the regiment of mounted riflemen under Maj. Winslow F. Sanderson who in 1849 rode to take over Fort Laramie. Robidoux Pass has historical primacy as "the first Scott's Bluffs Pass." On the other hand, "the second Scott's Bluffs Pass," now known as Mitchell Pass, was used by 150,000 or more emigrants, soldiers, and freighters of the 1850's and 1860's. And it was also the scene of the overland stage, the Pony Express, and the first transcontinental telegraph. Honors are about equally divided.

The big climax years for Robidoux Pass were 1849-51. A surprisingly large number of emigrant journals for these years have survived and most of them devote a lot of attention to the magnificent scenery of Scotts Bluff, the unusually fine springs and ample firewood here, the view from the crest of the pass toward Laramie Peak , and Robidoux's log cabin blacksmith shop and trading post, and its colorful inhabitants.

Another illuminating description is that given by Captain Stansbury on his westward trip of 1849:

... Three miles from the Chimney Rock, the road gradually leaves the river for the purpose of passing behind Scott's Bluff, a point where a spur from the main ridge comes so close to the river as to leave no room for the passage of teams. There was no water between these two points, a distance of more than twenty miles, and we were consequently obliged to go on until nine o'clock, when we encamped at the bluff, on a small run near a delicious spring, after having been in the saddle sixteen hours without food, and travelled thirty-one and a-half miles. The march was a severe one upon the animals, as they were in harness, after the noon halt, for seven successive hours, without water. The afternoon was oppressively hot, and the gnats and musquitoes almost insufferable. There is a temporary blacksmith's shop here, established for the benefit of the emigrants, but especially for that of the owner, who lives in an Indian lodge, and had erected a log shanty by the roadside, in one end of which was the blacksmith's forge, and in the other a grog-shop and sort of grocery. The stock of this establishment consisted principally of such articles as the owner had purchased from the emigrants at a great sacrifice and sold to others at as great a profit. Among other things, an excellent double wagon was pointed out to me, which he had purchased for seventy-five cents. The blacksmith's shop was an equally profitable concern; as, when the smith was indisposed to work himself, he rented the use of shop and tools for the modest price of seventy-five cents an hour, and it was not until after waiting for several hours that I could get the privilege of shoeing two of the horses, even at that price, the forge having been in constant use by the emigrants. Scott's Bluff, according to our measurement, is five hundred and ninety-six miles from Fort Leavenworth, two hundred and eighty-five from Fort Kearny, and fifty-one from Fort Laramie.

Others wryly note the shrewdness of this makeshift proprietor, Robidoux. Various journalists refer to two or more "Frenchmen" and their squaws, and an indefinite number of children. In 1850 James Bennett found here "an encampment of near a 100 Sioux Indians" . In 1851 Father De Smet, returning from the Horse Creek Treaty Council, baptized Robidoux's half-breed children.

In 1851, Robidoux, feeling somewhat overrun by the emigrant hordes, retired to a secluded canyon about a mile southeast of the original location. The appearance of this second trading post has been providentially preserved in a sketch by the German traveler, Frederick M?llhausen. The site of this post has been identified in present Carter Canyon.

Who was Robidoux? Although all the facts are not fully established, it appears that he was Joseph E. Robidoux, oldest son of the Joseph Robidoux who founded St. Joseph, Mo.; and that the other "Frenchman" seen there was his uncle, Antoine Robidoux, who earlier achieved pioneering fame in Utah and California. The younger Joseph is an elusive figure. He may well have been the Robidoux who led the first American Fur Company contingent by Scotts Bluff, in 1830, and who was seen at Fort Laramie in 1846 by Parkman.

What became of Robidoux? Although reported to have died accidentally at Scotts Bluff, no grave has been identified. There is evidence that he returned to the Great Nemaha Indian Agency, in northeastern Kansas, in the late fifties, and died there in obscurity. There are many half-breed "Robidouxes" on Indian reservations in South Dakota who have identified the Scotts Bluff Robidoux as their ancestor.

Modern research has revealed another fact long lost sight of. Robidoux's trading post was not the only one in this neighborhood during the gold rush. It has now been definitely established that, in the summer of 1849, after they sold adobe-walled Fort John to the U. S. Government, officials of the American Fur Company removed to Scotts Bluff. Contrary to a long-held erroneous impression, their new post was not located near Mitchell Pass ; it was first located tentatively in Robidoux Pass, within a few hundred yards of Robidoux's blacksmith shop. Then, for reasons which can only be surmised, it was moved to a point 6 miles below Robidoux's and 8 miles south of Mitchell Pass, in present Helvas Canyon. In correspondence of the fur company it was identified as "Fort John, Scott's Bluffs."

This post, being off the main trail, did not rate much notice by travelers, compared with the attention given to Robidoux, but there are occasional references. In 1850 James Bennett states that about 7 miles below Robidoux's there was a trading post "3 miles to our left, where we could see a herd of cattle grazing." Sgt. Percival G. Lowe of the Dragoons, in 1850, reports that "we turned south and camped near a trading post belonging to Major Dripps."

Andrew Drips, the "mountain man" who had guided De Smet up this way in 1840, was later replaced by Joseph Papin of St. Louis, who died and was buried here. His grave and the outlines of the second "Fort John" have been identified. It is not known just when this place was abandoned. However, when the main artery of traffic definitely moved from Robidoux to Mitchell Pass, in 1852, "Fort John" and Robidoux's post both doubtless "withered on the vine," in the manner of a modern-day filling station which is by-passed by a new highway.

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