Cherokee Trail

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The Cherokee Trail, sometimes called the "Trappers' Trail," was a historic trail through the present-day U.S. states of Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado and Wyoming that was used from the late 1840s up through the early 1860s. The route was established in 1849 by wagon train headed to the gold fields in California. Among the members of the expedition were a group of Cherokees. According to James Truslow Adams, the trail was laid out and marked in the summer of 1848 by Lt. Abraham Buford in command of Company H of the First Dragoons, though it had previously been followed by trappers en route to the Rocky Mountains. The trail was later used by other Cherokee as well as European settlers to drive cattle along the base of the mountains.

The route of the trail ran from the Grand River near present day Salina, Oklahoma, to the Santa Fe Trail east of the Little Arkansas. From there it followed the Santa Fe, then turned north along the base of the Front Range into the valley of the South Platte River to present-day Laporte in Larimer County. From Laporte, it ascended the North Fork Cache la Poudre River to the Laramie Plains in southeastern Wyoming, then went westward to join the historic route of the Emigrant Trail. The community of Cherokee Park in Larimer County is named for a historic encampment of the Cherokee during the 1849 return from California along the same route.

The initial Cherokee expedition along the trail was a principal factor in the later exploitation of gold in the area during the 1859 Colorado Gold Rush. The Cherokees, familiar with gold mining from their original home in Georgia, discovered traces of placer gold in creeks of the South Platte. William Green Russell, a Georgian with ties to the Cherokee who had prospected in California during the California Gold Rush, heard stories of the gold and organized the first prospecting expedition to the region in 1858.

Part of the trail is still visible and walkable in Douglas county. (Take Greenland exit 167 from I25, go west to county park. Trail is along railroad tracks.*TB) Also, small parts can still be spotted along I25 heading south towards Pueblo by the trained eye.

[edit] Sources

• Forman, Grant. Early Trails Through Oklahoma, Oklahoma Chronicles 3:2 (June 1925) 99-119 (retrieved August 18, 2006).
• Marcy, Randolph B., Capt. US Army. The Prairie Traveler. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1859. (retrieved from The Kansas Collection August 18, 2006).
• Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940