Steve F. Russell

Aliases: Mormon Trail, Mormon Pioneer Trail, Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail Download route: KML | KMZ Leaving from Omaha/Council Bluffs in 1846, the Mormon Pioneers used this route to go from Council Bluffs to the Great Salt Lake Valley. They…

The Frenchwoman’s—aka French Woman’s—Road originated in 1687 connecting Helena, Montana with the Little Blackfoot River and the Deer Lodge Valley. Constant Guyot operated the toll road from her home on Dog Creek. The road was eventually replaced with U.S. Highway…

The 1848 Burnett Cutoff was used when traveling between western Oregon and northern California. It was a shortcut between the Lassen (California) and Applegate (Oregon) Trails. Map files: KML | KMZ Static Map

Aliases: Carson River Road, Carson Pass Road, Carson River Route Map files: KML | KMZ This route was made into a wagon road in 1848 by the Mormon Battalion on their way to Salt Lake City from California. They left…

The Henness Pass Trail/Road connected Virginia City, Nevada (and Carson City) with Marysville, California. West of Hoke Valley, California in 1849, it was just a trail. East of Hoke Valley, the 1852 road route is intermingled with some of the…

Wyoming History starts an article about Emigrant Hill on the Child’s Cutoff with: The Child’s Cutoff of the Oregon Trail was opened in 1850. This new route allowed emigrants who had been following the Council Bluffs Road along the north…

The Daggett Pass-Georgetown Pack Trail was opened in 1850 providing access to mines in present Placer and Nevada counties. It left the Carson Valley, climbed present Daggett Pass (better-known as Kingsbury Grade), and continued west across the Sierra Mountains to…

The history and date of the Ham’s Fork Cutoff has not been established but it is shown on the 1852 Ezra Meeker map. Some segments are also shown on the GLO survey plat maps of the area. the cutoff avoided…

The road pioneered by William Nobles between Rye Patch Reservoir and Shasta, California was advertised as the being shorter and more practical than any other roads to the northern gold fields. From a topographical perspective, it seems to have lived…

The Lander Road, also known as the Lander Trail or Lander Cutoff, was the first US government-sponsored road for emigrants heading to Oregon and California. The Lander Road gave travelers on the Oregon Trail and the California Trail a straight…

Also known as Bridger Road and Bridger Immigrant Road, the Bridger Trail connected the Oregon Trail to the 1864 gold fields in Montana. The route intentionally avoided the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho by running west of the Bighorn Mountains in…

In 1869, Captain E. W. Clift explored Montana Territory for the location of a wagon road from the mouth of the Mussellshell River, on the Missouri River, to Fort Ellis. He also explored an alternate of the route that went…

Several researchers have contributed to the making of this Lewis and Clark Trail center line—an approximation of the route the Expedition followed in 1803–1806. Very roughly, the Ohio River section was created by Kristopher K. Townsend, the Missouri River by…

Early explorers often created field maps, called “skeleton maps,” to illustrate the trails or routes followed and the geographic landmarks that helped define their locations. Following are twenty route segments that make up the trails to California. These trail routes…

The Bidwell-Bartleson Party of 1841 was the first to attempt to travel by wagon train from Missouri to California (then owned by Mexico). Their general route was over what we now call the California Trail. This “route” is actually a…

In 1811–1812, Wilson Hunt lead an expedition from the Arikara Villages, on the Missouri River in South Dakota, to the newly-established Fort Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia River. In a major sense, Hunt would be traveling a route…

Robert Stuart was the leader of an expedition that traveled from the newly established Fort Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River to St. Louis, Missouri in 1812–13. Stuart and his party were successful in their attempt, despite their…

Perhaps the biggest fallacy within the system of western trails to California is the Hastings (Cutoff) Road (Hastings Road). It seems that its primary purpose was to give employment and notoriety to Lansford Hastings rather than to provide emigrants and…

Aliases: Hensley’s Salt Lake Alternate This alternate route from Salt Lake City to the Walker/Humboldt River Road became popular when the Mormon settlers of the Great Salt Lake Valley began to resupply goods to the California emigrants. The quality and…

The Sublette Cutoff was pioneered in 1844 by the Stephens-Townsend-Murphy Party. Their captain was Elisha Stephens, a mountain man and beaver trapper. Their guide was mountain man Caleb Greenwood. John Townsend was a physician that would become one of the…

This Summary Research Report, with GPS data and an abstract of the route, documents the Hudspeth Cutoff wagon road of the California Trail in Idaho. The research is based on historical maps and travelers’ journals and diaries.

Aliases: Lassen Trail, Applegate Trail (Rye Patch Reservoir to Goose Lake) This was a route from the Humboldt River at Rye Patch Reservoir to Vina, California via Goose Lake on the California-Oregon border. In actuality, Peter Lassen only had to…

The Gaultier Brother’s Expedition through North and South Dakota, Wyoming, and Nebraska in 1742–1743. Based on a journal, written by Francois Gaultier, Chevalier of the Verendrye, and his brother Pierre Gaultier, documenting an Expedition to reach the Western Sea, addressed…

This center line of the 1845 Barlow Road is a draft from Steve Russell worthy of sharing with the general public. As of this date, Russell has not offered any commentary on this map. In 1996 and 2002, Jim Tompkins…

The Old North Trail is an ancient travel corridor that traversed the plains and mountains of North America, primarily running through what is now Montana and Alberta with access between Edmonton, Canada and Mexico. For centuries, it served as a…

This is one of a series of trail research reports that Steve F. Russell is producing for public use. It is a summary of his research and contains only a map set and GPS waypoint data set. His usual coverage…

KML file for Google Earth, russell-nez-perce.kml The Nez Perce 1877 Campaign Center Line is one of a series of trail research reports that Steve F. Russell is producing for public use. It is a summary of his research and contains…

This map shows the most significant Western watershed boundaries in the United States, the Great Continental Divide, and the Great Basin Divide. These watershed boundaries were drawn with great accuracy based on USGS topographic maps. Water does not flow out…

Notes for the 1836 Original Map of the Northwest Fur Country by Warren A. Ferris from “Life in the Rocky Mountains,” Western Literary Messenger, Buffalo, NY, (Series) 13 July 1842 – 4 May 1844.

Steve F. Russell has edited and produced the letters and journal of the 1874 Trip from Fort Shaw to Camp Lewis by Captain Constant Williams and Company F of the 7th U.S. Infantry. In April and May of 1874, Williams…

In July of 1806, Meriwether Lewis and a small group of men from the Corps of Discovery main party, traveled eastward from Travelers Rest Camp, following the main Indian trail up the Big Blackfoot River in Montana. On July 5,…

Lord Selkirk’s (Thomas Douglas, 5th Earl of Selkirk) Land Grant of 116,000 Square Miles, known as Assiniboia, Including the Forts, was mapped in 1817. This land grant was in Canada and North Dakota and included the Red River of the…

This brief monograph addresses the methodology Steve Russell has developed for finding historic trails and wagon roads. Trying to describe a process that has been developed using science, inference, and intuition is difficult because it involves so many variables and…

The Idaho Governor’s Lewis and Clark Committee presentation covers the location, documentation, and preservation of the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail over the Bitterroot Mountains. This report includes photos and maps.

Starting in 1922, Jack Harlan began his Clearwater Republican and Clearwater Tribune newspaper series on the history of the Lolo Trail. Lolo Trail is a general name for the routes followed by Lewis and Clark in 1805–06 and the route…

Scholarly research on historic trails with original journals, original maps, and modern field work (camping out all summer). Work with state, federal, Tribal, and historic preservation agencies. High-accuracy GIS results using ARCVIEW and precision GPS. Natural history documentation: geology, plants,…

In 2001 and 2002, Steve F. Russell and survey assistants, Theo Petersen and Matt Battani, hiked the trail followed by Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery from Lolo Pass, Idaho-Montana to Weippe, Idaho. This trail tread was recorded…

Lewis and Clark Trail: In Their Footsteps presents the research results and methods of Steve F. Russell, Historic Trails Research, Ames, Iowa. Presented at the Museum of the Rockies, Bozeman, Montana by invitation of the Headwaters Chapter of the Lewis…

This document is a research report on the salmon fishing expedition of Sgt. John Ordway of the Corps of Discovery under the command on Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. This route and the effort of Ordway remained largely unnoticed until…

The Lolo Trail National Historic Landmark Composite Topographic maps document the research status for the trail treads and campsites along the Lolo Trail National Historic Landmark in 2002.

Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior relating to the Virginia City, Montana–Lewiston, Idaho Wagon Road, 1865-1870 Complied from the file microcopies of records of the National Archives No. 95, Roll 13. This is the first research…

This report is one of five research reports that were compiled into a document entitled: “The Mystery of Lost Trail Pass,” James Fazio, Ed, 2000. It describes in detail how the researcher analyzed the Lewis and Clark Journals and the…

Fascination with the route and camping places of Lewis and Clark has remained strong for more than 100 years. With the approaching bicentennial of the Corps of Discovery, this interest is only intensifying. What is more, increasing numbers of people…

This campsite is well know to the Lewis and Clark Trail community. It was a popular camping place for Salish, Nez Perce, and early Explorers. The location was at the junction of the Lolo Trail (from Lolo, Montana to Kamiah,…

George Benson Nicholson was the civil engineer for the survey of the Virginia City and Lewiston Wagon Road project in 1866. Nicholson did two surveys, a course and distance survey of the Northern Nez Perces Trail (NNT) and a stake…

This is the 1996 Progress Report of the Nez Perce (Nee-Me-Poo) National Historic Trail Foundation.

On the Clearwater and Lolo National Forests, in the mountains of Northern Idaho and Western Montana, there is an ancient trail system that has been used for hundreds of years as a land bridge between the Columbia River basin and…

Original Historic Places Registration Form (13 May 1991) The original 1991 registration of the Lolo Trail as a National Historic Place by Idaho State Historian Merle Wells. Signed by “the Keeper” 1 February 1993. This form primarily documents the Northern…

Research has been completed on the topographic location of the Bird-Truax Trail—also called the Lolo Trail of 1866. This index documents the route and place names for future researchers. The database will be continually updated to improve its quality. Route…

This paper documents the history and geographical location of the Bird-Truax Trail surveyed in 1866 which was the mountainous segment of the planned Virginia City and Lewiston Wagon Road that was never built. This wagon road was a federally-funded project…

The Lolo Trail is a mountain trail in Northern Idaho that ranks second only to the Oregon Trail and the Mullan Wagon Road in its importance to Northwest U.S. History. Due to its remoteness, it may also be the most…

This is a transcribed copy of the microfilm records of the Virginia City and Lewiston Wagon Road project of 1865-1870 by the federal government. Wellington Bird was the project supervisor and disbursing agent and George Benson Nicholson was the civil…

The Carroll Trail was a wagon road for transporting goods from Carroll Landing on the Missouri River to Helena, Montana. Part 1 explains the basic facts about the trail and answers anticipated reader questions. Part 2 describes the 1875 trip…

The Carroll Trail was a wagon road for transporting goods from Carroll Landing on the Missouri River to Helena, Montana. This version is slightly abridged. Part 1 explains the basic facts about the trail and answers anticipated reader questions. Part…