June 22 – A 5-month virtual road trip along the California Trail 3-year-old Ada Magill died from dysentery on July 3, 1864. You can read her story on the Wyoming History webpage of the Wyoming State Historical Society at https://www.wyohistory.org/encyclopedia/ada-magill-grave. The photograph of her gravesite (GPS coordinates -105.978,42.849) was downloaded from the Historical Marker Database [...]
Category: People
June California Trail Social Media Posts: Week 2
June 8 – A 5-month virtual road trip along the California Trail Travelers on the south side of the South Platte river who did not cross earlier would cross near the present-day towns of Julesberg and Ovid, Colorado. You can visit a small museum in Julesberg that tells the story of Fort Sedgwick and the [...]
June California Trail Social Media Posts: Week 1
June 1 – A 5-month virtual road trip along the California Trail Fort Kearney (http://outdoornebraska.gov/fortkearny/ GPS coordinates -99.005, 40.645) was established along the Oregon/California Trail in 1848. Today you can visit an Interpretive Center, view the parade grounds and several reconstructed buildings. Note that this Fort Kearney should be distinguished from "Old Fort Kearney" which [...]
Social Media Posts for March, 2022
The social media posts I wrote for the California Trail Interpretive Center for March were in honor of Women's History month. I chose simply to relate the experiences for four women as they passed through the Elko, Nevada region during their emigration to California in the mid-1800's. I traced their progress from near present-day Wells, [...]
February Social Media Posts
These are the Facebook posts I wrote for Black History month (February) for the California Trail Interpretive Center. February 4 For Black History month (February), we are looking at some African American experiences associated with the western emigration along the overland trails. Mary Ellen Pleasant self-identified herself as "a capitalist" in the 1890 census. She [...]
The Watchmaker's Pulse 