Across the Prairies

The Cherokee Trail exited Jimmy Camp through what Rufus B. Sage called a “defile of hills:” two conical hills of dirt and rock, which provided a corridor of about seventy-five yards in width. Beyond this narrow passage the trail climbed a gradual hill to the high rolling perairies. Then – for fifteen miles – the course was due north, through deep buffalo grass, to a crossing of Black Squirrel Creek at the edge of the pinery (later known as Black Forest).

Across the Prairies

F.A. Wislizenus, September, 1839.

Frederick Adolphus Wislizenus was a medical doctor, who had been born in Germany. In 1835 he had emigrated to the U.S. Four year later, feeling “the need of mental and physical recreaion” he had joined a caravan bound for the trappers’ rendezvous on the Green River. The return east had led Wislizenus and his six companiuons down the old divide trail through the pinery. At the edge of the trees, the men entered a high, rolling prairie.

“In the wide prairie stretching from there toward the Arkansas we saw again our first herds of buffalo. We met here two lodges of Arapahoes, who had just shot a cow, and gave us a hospitable invitation. The squaws were still cutting it up. We smoked the while, and, in the absence of wood, collected buffalo chips whereon to roast the ribs. After our meal we started off in company. The squaws packed their animals with admirable economy. One squaw not only loaded a horse with about three hundred pounds of baggage, but seated herself with some children on the same animal, maintaining the equilibrium with motions of her own body. A dog, too, had to carry about fifty pounds. At evening we camped together on a sandy creek. The Indians were also on their way to the Arkansas; but they traveled too slow for us, so we parted from them on the next morning ....”

Source:A Journey to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1939, by Dr. F.A. Wislizenus. (The Rio Grande Press, Inc.: Glorietta, New Mexico, 1969).

Philip St. George Cooke, 25 July 1845.

Captain Cooke was marching down the old trail with Colonel Kearney and the First Dragoons. The men had camped in the trees on the night of 24 July. The next morning they began an exhausting march of thirty-one miles across the wide prairies.

“When we emerged from the woods, a very extensive view opened to the east and south; no more forest was to be seen; the prairies had a shade of decided green, which was a pleasing novelty; but this great slope has a southern exposure, and is high enough to share the mountain showers. Be this as it may, it is the most promising country we have seen since we first came to the Platte near its mouth.”

Source: Scenes and Adventures in the Army, by Philip St. George Cooke. (Philadelpia, 1859).

Francis Parkman, 18 August 1846.

Parkman and his companions had nooned on Black Squirrel Creek at the edge of the pinery. As they traversed the high priaries that same afternoon the southbound travelers caught just the edge of a thunderstorm.

“A noble spectacle awaited us as we moved forward. Six or eight miles on our right, Pike's Peak and his giant brethren rose out of the level prairie, as if springing from the bed of the ocean. From their summits down to the plain below they were involved in a mantle of clouds, in restless motion, as if urged by strong winds. For one instant some snowy peak, towering in awful solitude, would be disclosed to view. As the clouds broke along the mountain, we could see the dreary forests, the tremendous precipices, the white patches of snow, the gulfs and chasms as black as night, all revealed for an instant, and then disappearing from the view.”

Source: The Oregon Trail, by Francis Parkman. (New York: Airmont Publishing Co.)

Samuel D. Raymond, 31 May 1859.

Gold seeker from Kansas City.

“Left Jims Springs about 7 o'clock and found our way over rather a high rolling Sandy Prairie.”

Source: Diary of Samuel D. Raymond. Unpublished manuscript in possession of the State Historical Society of Colorado.

Luke Tierney, 20 June 1858.

Member of the Russell Party of gold seekers. The previous night had been spent at Jimmy Camp.

“On Sabbath, twentieth of June, we marched during the forenoon a distance of twelve miles, until we reached Black Squirrel creek, having first filled our water vessels - there being no water beyween the two points .... Our men were fortunate to kill six antelopes that day.”

Source: "Luke Tierney Guidebook," Pike's Peak Gold Rush Guidebooks of 1859, ed. by LeRoy R. Hafen. (Glendale, Calif.: The Arthur H. Clark Co., 1941).