The Central Overland Route (also known as the "Central Overland Trail", "Central Route", "Simpson's Route", or the "Egan Trail") was a transportation route from Salt Lake City, Utah south of the Great Salt Lake through the mountains of central Nevada and the Basin and Range Province to Carson City, Nevada. For a decade after 1859, until the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, it served a vital role in the transport of emigrants, mail, freight, and passengers between California and the established states east of the Mississippi River.
The route was initially scouted in 1855 by Howard Egan, and used to drive livestock between Salt Lake City and California. The trail Egan used led straight thorough the high mountain ranges that most earlier explorers had worked so hard to avoid. Egan realized that a series of mountain passes and mountain springs were aligned to allow an almost direct path through the region. The Schell Creek Range could be crossed at Schellbourne Pass, the Cherry Creek Range at Egan Canyon, the Ruby Mountains at Overland Pass, the Diamond Mountains at another Overland Pass, the Toiyabe Range at Emigrant Pass, and the Desatoya Mountains at Basque Summit (all of these place names came later). Although many smaller ranges and two large deserts also had to be traversed, the reduction in length by about 280 miles (450 km) made this route about two weeks faster getting to (or from) California.
In 1858, hearing of Egan's Trail, the U.S. Army sent an expedition led by Captain James H. Simpson to survey it for a military road to get supplies to the Army's Camp Floyd in Utah. Simpson came back with a surveyed route that was about 280 miles (450 km) shorter than the 'standard' California Trail route along the Humboldt River. The Army then improved the trail for use by wagons and stagecoaches in 1859 and 1860. When the approaching American Civil War closed the Butterfield Overland Mail south western route to California George Chorpenning immediately realized the value of this more direct route, and shifted his existing mail and passenger line from the "Northern Humboldt Route" along the Humboldt River. In 1861 John Butterfield, who since 1858 had been using heavily mail subsidized "Southern Route" through the deserts of the American Southwest, also switched to the Central Route to avoid hostilities during the American Civil War. The Army established Fort Ruby at the southern end of Ruby Valley in Nevada to protect travelers along the road. After the American Civil War, Wells Fargo & Co. ran stage coaches and freight wagons along the route, and developed the first agriculture in Ruby Valley to help provision their livestock.
In 1860 the Pony Express used this route across Utah and Nevada for their fast 10 day mail delivery from Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, California.
In 1860 Hiram Sibley, the president of the Western Union Company, formed a consortium between Western Union and the telegraph companies in California to construct the First Transcontinental Telegraph from Omaha, Nebraska to Carson City, Nevada. The newly consolidated Overland Telegraph Company of California, which had already built a telegraph line to Carson City, would build the line eastward from Carson City using the newly developed Central Route though Nevada and Utah. At the same time, the Pacific Telegraph Company of Nebraska was formed by Sibley. It would construct a line westward from Omaha, Nebraska along the eastern part of the California and Oregon Trails. The lines would meet at a station in Salt Lake City.
Materials for the line were collected in late 1860, and rapid construction proceeded during the second half of 1861. Major problems were encountered in finding telegraph poles on the tree less plains of the Midwest and the nearly tree less deserts of the Great Basin. The telegraph line from Omaha reached Salt Lake City on October 18, 1861, and the line from Carson City to Salt Lake City was completed on October 24 1861--about a year ahead of predictions.
Several accounts of travel along the Central Route have been published. In July 1859 Horace Greeley made the trip, at a time when Chorpenning was using only the eastern segment (they reconnected with the Humboldt River trail near present-day Beowawe). Greeley published his detailed observations in his 1860 book "An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco" [1]. In October of 1860 the English explorer Richard Burton traveled the entire route at a time when the Pony Express was operating. He gave detailed descriptions of each of the way stations in his 1861 book "The City of the Saints, Across the Rocky Mountains to California". In the summer of 1861 Samuel Clemens (who only later used the pen name Mark Twain) traveled the route with his brother Orion on their way to Nevada's new territorial capital in Carson City, but provided only sparse descriptions of the road in his 1872 book "Roughing It".
In 1869 the Transcontinental Railroad was completed using the more level route along the Humboldt River to the north - the original California Trail. Since an advanced telegraph was also constructed alongside the railroad, the Central Route was now obsolete. The stage and telegraph relay stations were abandoned, and the soldiers at Fort Ruby were transferred north to Fort Halleck to protect the railroad. See Also: Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Pony Express Map[2] Nevada's Northeast Frontie[3]
References
Further reading
- "An Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco", by Horace Greeley (1860). Chapter XXV available at [3]
- "The City of the Saints, Across the Rocky Mountains to California" by Richard Burton (1861). Available at [4]
- "Roughing It" (Chapter 20), by Mark Twain (1872). Chapter XX available at [5]
- "The Overland Mail", by Leroy R. Hafen (1929). A detailed account of the various mail lines.