In 1849 a group of whites and Cherokee Indians embarked on a journey from Arkansas to the gold mines of California. The trail they followed became known as the Cherokee Trail. This section of trail is between South Platte and Fort Bridger.
In 1849 a group of whites from Washington County, Arkansas, and Cherokee from the Nation rendezvoused on the Grand (Neosho) River at the Grand Saline for the sole purpose of going to the California Goldfields. There they elected officers with Lewis Evans of Evansville, Ark. as Captain.Under his leadership the forty-wagon train pioneered the first wagon road northwest through northeastern Oklahoma, crossing the Verdigris River southwest of Coody’s Bluff. Entering south central Kansas, present Montgomery County, traveling on the highlands between the Verdigris and Caney Rivers, they crossed the Walnut River at present El Dorado. On May 13, 1849 the wagon train struck the Santa Fe Trail at Running Turkey Creek east of McPherson, KS.
Proceeding west along the Santa Fe Trail, in the forefront of the California emigration, they went to Bents Fort (CO). Leaving the Santa Fe Trail the train continued west up the Arkansas River to Pueblo. Here a split in the company occurred with a number of members forming a pack company, hiring guide Dick Owens and proceeding via Fort St. Vrain (on the South Platte River northeast of Denver) to the Cache la Poudre River, through southern Wyoming near the Colorado border, to the vicinity of Brown’s Hole and the Green River, and on to Fort Bridger, Wyoming.
The Captain Evans/Cherokee wagon company, joined by other wagons, proceeded from Pueblo north along the front range of the Rocky Mountains on the old Trappers or Divide Trail. This trail, east of Colorado Springs, ran over “the divide” between the Arkansas and South Platte Rivers, and down Cherry Creek to the South Platte where Denver now stands. Traveling northeast along the South Platte to the confluence of the Cache la Poudre River near Greeley, the Evans/Cherokee wagon train left the trading forts’ trace, forded the South Platte and proceeded west. With no guide, they again pioneered the wagon road from the crossing of the South Platte to Fort Bridger. Their route, west along the Poudre River through present Fort Collins to Laporte, turned north along the front range passing what would later become the site of the Virginia Dale Stage Station on the Overland Stage Route, onto the Laramie Plains of Wyoming.
The Evans/Cherokee train traveled north, passing west of Laramie (WY), south around Elk Mountain and west to ford the upper North Platte River, then west and north to Rawlins (WY), then crossing the Red Desert to the Green River. After crossing the Green River the wagon train struck the California Trail northeast of Fort Bridger. This trail, which originated on the Grand Saline in Oklahoma and went through to Fort Bridger, was subsequently named The Cherokee Trail; more properly the 1849 Evans/Cherokee Trail.
At the site you will find a post marking the trail along with some interpretive information. Next to the post you can still see the ruts from the wagon wheels.
Also of interest at this location is a restored original Overland Stage Coach stop and barn. It was built in 1861 by Ben Holladay when the trail had to be moved south due to Indian wars to the north.