A Search for Nebraska's Past - The Oregon Trail
By Dick Eckles, Editor, NAS
Being interested in the history and prehistory of Nebraska and the Great Plains in general since I was a youngster, I was always on the lookout for the evidence left by past generations. During the fifty years that I have pursued this avocation of searching for the past I found identifying and learning about the lost relics was every bit as enjoyable as finding them. I also became aware it is important to document ones finds as they may become important in future studies by historians or archaeologists.
In the late 1960’s I decided the use of a metal detector would be an enjoyable way to search for metallic items that had been lost or discarded by previous generations. A friend of mine acquired a schematic of a metal detector and the two of us proceeded to build our own detectors. I was sure my dad would also be quite interested in this venture so I assembled one for him as well. The detectors opened up a whole new world because our previous finds of old historical items had been limited to only what we could find visually on the surface of the ground. We used these homemade detectors for several years and then eventually decided to purchase new commercial detectors that used a more advanced technology which could discriminate between ferrous and non-ferrous metals.
The next fourteen years we spent many hours of our spare time hunting in parks, school yards, fairgrounds and any other place we could think of where people congregated and might have lost something of value. Metal detecting was a great pastime but our finds rarely predated the 1880’s and I often thought it would be much more interesting if we could find items related to some of the earliest history of our state. This is the point where the title of this story comes into play.
The Oregon Trail dating to the early 1840’s is one of the most famous trails in the nation and by chance we happen to live in Nuckolls County, a county the Trail crosses as it followed the north side of the Little Blue River.
It is estimated over 500,000 California and Oregon bound emigrants passed over this trail during the 1840’s through the 1860’s. With that many people passing over the Oregon Trail I was quite sure the odds were in our favor there had to be lost, misplaced, and discarded items to be found along this trail. Those items of the trail days are now historical relics from the 19th century; many of them would now be a century and a half old. For several years my dad and I often talked about trying to use our metal detectors along this high-way of the past as an experiment to identify actual Trail locations. Finally in 1983 while we were on one of our many outings along the Little Blue River, I was looking at one of the locations where it appeared Oregon Trail ruts could still be seen and I had an inspiring thought. When looking at this particular location one can see swales where the Trail appeared to have come up out of the river’s flood plain and onto a very nice and flat picturesque meadow, then from this spot it appeared that the trail continued up out of the river valley and then cross country a ways before it once again came close to the river. As I looked at this nice location I could envision it as being a perfect camping spot for the Oregon Trail travelers as there was plenty of room for the wagon trains and it was close to water. I decided right there that this would be the spot for my first attempt at locating a site which may have been used by Oregon Trail travelers.
The next day I returned with my metal detector not knowing what to expect, but hoping to find something that might be related to the days of Oregon Trail travel. I decided to first try the detector in the wide swales that were cut into the sod by the passing of thousands of wagons as they came up the slope and onto the flat area which I was hoping might have been used for camping by the emigrants. The detector was turned on and I started to scan the surface of the ground. In just a few sweeps of the detector’s search coil caused the device to make a beeping sound indicating a metallic item buried in the soil. Digging into the soil about four inches deep I discovered a lead bullet. It was quite large by today’s standards, about a .50 caliber slug and obviously very old as the lead had acquired a yellow-white patina on its surface.
Several more sweeps with the coil caused more beeping from the detector and another very old bullet was found. This was repeated several times with the bullets all being of different styles and varying from .40 caliber up to the larger .58 calibers (fig. 1). As I detected towards the center of one of these swales I received another signal from the detector, this time I recovered a plated military button with an eagle design on its front. On the breast of the eagle was a shield with the letter “D” on it. In less than half an hour several bullets and a military button had been found and I was left with many questions about my finds. What time period were these items from? Why were the fired bullets here? What kind of guns were they fired from? What did the “D” on the button stand for? Knowing it would take time to research and hopefully learn some of the answers I continued to search thinking more discoveries could help verify that this was actually an Oregon Trail campsite. It was next decided to do some searching on the flat meadow where there was room to circle a wagon train and camp. Once I started hunting this area the detector signals were much more frequent. Many of these detected items were square nails of various sizes and I learned later some of the nails were those from the shoes of oxen, mules, and horses. I finally started to find relics confirming this was indeed an Oregon Trail campsite. Within this area three pocket knives were found (fig. 2), and all with their blades still in an open position as if their owners were using them, laid them down, and went off and forgot them. In those days a pocket knife was a very useful and much needed tool, it would have been a considerable loss to its owner as it would be very difficult to replace.
Eating utensils from that time period were also found, the most interesting were cast iron, two tined forks (fig. 3), some with their bone handles still partially intact.
Two important finds for dating this site to the Oregon Trail days were coins, coincidentally they were both of the same denomination, half dimes with early 1850’s dates! (fig. 4) These small silver coins are a little less than five-eighths of an inch in diameter and most likely were very easy to lose.
The recoveries made that first day pretty well established the fact that Oregon Trail campsites could be pinpointed with the aid of metal detectors. From that day on, our search became more involved than we ever thought it would. With most potential sites under agriculture succeeding searches with detectors was extremely time consuming and rarely productive. However, over time some new and different items turned the search into a continuing learning experience. As time went on we found several other campsites, each containing Trail related items and occasionally unusual items were found such as cast iron toys (fig 5) belonging to the children who were making the dangerous and exhausting trip with their parents. A misplaced toy left behind at the last camping location was probably a temporarily sad loss to a child as there was no way to replace a store-bought toy out on the uninhabited Plains. However children have great imaginations and I’m sure makeshift toys would soon replace the lost ones.
Before becoming involved in this search of the past, we could not have told you what the difference between a mule shoe and a horse shoe (see fig. 6). Nor did we realize in order to shoe an ox, a right and left half-shoe (fig. 7) was needed for each foot. The ox has a cloven hoof (two halves) and each half had to be shod separately. My dad was the first one to recover one of these “two-part” oxen shoes. His find was an example of a badly worn shoe and it took us quite a while before we found someone who could correctly identify it for us.
It soon became apparent we needed additional information to identify our finds, although many items were identified by visiting museums that had Oregon Trail related items on display. I eventually acquired a useful book for the identification of the numerous and great variety of bullets that are found along the trail. One fact was noted in the book was the immigrants liked to fire their weapons, including fired bullet groups into nearby hillsides suggesting target practice. It was also noted that a good number of fired bullets were located where the draft animals were pulling up a grade.
Wanting to know more about the immigrants and their experiences while traveling the Oregon Trail through Nebraska led to a another book titled The Great Platte River Road by Merrill J. Mattes. If you have any interest at all in the Oregon Trail, I highly recommend this book. Much of the book's content was taken from the actual diaries and journals kept by the Oregon Trail travelers. When reading it, you will gain a better understanding as to how difficult and how dangerous this trip truly was. A conservative figure for the number of deaths which occurred in wagon train parties is 20,000 for the entire 2,000 miles of California Trail, or an average of ten graves to each mile.
Between 1849 and 1853, Asiatic Cholera was the greatest killer on the trail. After sickness and disease, the next major cause of injury or death were accidents with the most frequent cause being run over by wagon wheels. With some frequency, both children and adults apparently slipped while getting out of a wagon and fell beneath the wheels. Firearm accidents were the second leading cause of emigrant injury or death, and the third major source was stampeding livestock.
Our maps and other research materials eventually led us to the location of several road ranches that sprang up along the trail during the late 1850’s and 1860’s. These locations have been under agriculture for well over one hundred years. Although called road ranches, these places were not actual ranches but simple crude buildings whose owners took advantage of the many Oregon Trail travelers. The road ranches sold needed provisions and also the not-so-necessary provisions, such as watered down whiskey. Written accounts of Oregon Trail travelers told how bad the whiskey was, not only was it watered down but other nasty ingredients were sometimes added as well. These vile liquid concoctions had nicknames such as “popskull”, “tanglefoot”, and “skull varnish”.
As would be expected these liquid refreshments were also quite popular with the soldiers traveling up and down the Trail and they often stopped at these road ranches for that reason. During the Indian Wars of 1864 soldiers were also stationed at some of these road ranches to protect the mail carriers and to make sure the emigrants were traveling in large enough groups and were well enough armed to be safe from the numerous marauding war parties of Sioux and Cheyenne Indians. This military presence at these road ranches was the reason why some of our finds included military related items. More reference books were added to a growing library, as these references were needed to identify items being recovered which were related to the military of this era. From the references it was learned that there were quite a variety of military buttons to be found. Most of them had an eagle design and those that had a letter on the eagle’s breast came from an officer’s uniform. I had previously mentioned finding that first button with the letter “D” on it (fig. 8) and now was able to identify it as a Dragoon button.
The term dragoon is defined as a mounted soldier that is heavily armed and capable of fighting on horseback. The Dragoons were the predecessors of the Cavalry with the latter being officially established in 1855. The Cavalry buttons of the officers had the letter “C” on the eagle’s breast and of course we found more of the “C” buttons because the Cavalry was very active along the Oregon Trail during the Indian Wars. Other lettered buttons recovered consisted of buttons with the letter “I” for Infantry and “R” for Riflemen. The military buttons recovered on the site which was never under cultivation were in excellent condition and still retained much of their gold gilt plating. Those found in farm fields were definitely showing signs of deterioration most likely from years of applied chemicals.
Several other military items of interest were also recovered along the Trail which passed through Nuckolls County, one being a picket pin. The picket pin is a 16 inch long iron stake, pointed on one end and with a swiveling ring on the top end allowing the tool to rotate in a complete circle. Each cavalryman had a picket pin (fig. 10) which could be driven into the ground for an anchoring point to tie his horse to. Out on the treeless prairies, there was nothing to tie a horse to and the picket pin was the solution for this problem. One other interesting military item found at the location of a road ranch was a unique looking cast brass. With a quarter sized U. S. emblem, the item was a complete mystery, but it certainly seemed to be a significant piece of U.S. military history. Finding any Indian Wars military accoutrement with the U. S. marking on it is a fairly rare occurrence. When checking a reference book I finally found out the item was a bit ornament off of a U.S. military bridle.
Searching the Oregon Trail for approximately five years was a rewarding and an educational experience. It is unfortunate that over the years most signs of the Oregon Trail have been obliterated by agriculture. Those few remaining locations with visible Trail ruts are now threatened due to the current practice of breaking up land once considered unsuitable for farming. The first picture in this article (fig. a) is a prime example of such a location which could be leveled and readily irrigated with a modern pivot system. The now visible Oregon Trail ruts of this historic location may soon be just another farm field.