Today, unless a traveler is looking for a scenic route, truckers and tourists alike take I-80 across Nebraska in hours, but before highways and railways existed, routes were selected to provide grass for grazing, timber for cooking or warmth, avoidance of attack, even crossings for streams which had no bridges.
This led to one out-of-the-way trail, which connected latter day Nebraska City with Fort Kearny, which first headed, seemingly totally in the wrong direction, to a spot near today’s Ashland and created a journey several days longer than a trail in a straight line.
When Col. Stephen Watts Kearny arrived at the point where Table Creek emptied into the Missouri River, Nebraska did not even yet exist as a territory. His goal was a point on the Missouri River near where the Independence-St. Joe Road reached the Platte River so that government supplies could be brought upriver by steamboat before continuing west.
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At that point, a fort was to be established to protect settlers, those heading west and provide a port to unload river freight headed west. The site, first named Fort Kearny, was built near Table Creek but on May 1, 1848, it was abandoned to a caretaker and a new fort, briefly called Fort Childs but soon renamed new Fort Kearny, 197 miles west in Buffalo County on the Oregon Trail.
A year later the Missouri River had become a bustling port for government and private freight, becoming even more active as California migration began.
One diary of a westward immigrant still described old Fort Kearny in 1849 as “lots of log houses and on 8 square blockhouses (sic.) in the center (and) parade grounds are beautiful.†The trail from the Missouri River to new Fort Kearny headed northwest from the river, first merging with the Plattsmouth Road and thence to Saline Ford, today known as Ashland, where a narrow limestone outcropping had provided an all weather crossing of Salt Creek “as firm as a paved road,†which had been used as early as the 1830s. From Saline Ford the trail ran through what was later Swedeburg then near Brainerd and David City before turning southwest to new Fort Kearny, about 225 miles from its start at the Missouri River.
In 1858 Nebraska City also became a port for those heading to Cherry Creek in Colorado where gold had been discovered. Also, in 1858 the freighting firm of Russell, Majors & Waddell won a contract for shipping government goods west. Alexander Majors arrived at Nebraska City and announced that his firm had determined to set their terminus there, but he pointed out that they needed a more direct/straight trail west.
Federal funds were solicited for a survey and improvements, but they were refused, saying Omaha’s Military Road already served the purpose and a second road would be superfluous. Majors urged Nebraska City to supply the necessary funding, but the city also balked, leading to Majors to directly hire Augustus Harvey for $2,500 to survey the new route.
Harvey’s route largely followed the earlier Burnett path using fords over the small streams until reaching Salt Creek. At that point there was literally no trail and almost no settlement, leaving Harvey to simply create a single furrow with a breaking plow to mark the route leaving subsequent wagons to straddle the furrow. Despite the drawbacks, the new path shaved several days from the trip to new Fort Kearny and saved from 20 or 40 to even an overly optimistic and obviously inflated, 75 miles. During 1858 alone Russell, Majors & Waddell put together 34 wagon trains of goods in Nebraska City with all heading to new Fort Kearny and a few continuing on to Utah.
Omaha newspapers claimed that the trip from Omaha to new Fort Kearny was 180 miles and 75 miles shorter than the new Cut-Off trail which, they pointed out, was not really straight, was often muddy, wagons were isolated and subject to Indian attacks and also had less grass, timber and water.
On March 30, 1860, Nebraska City newspapers, using Omaha’s exaggerated mileage countered, saying “a straight road! Seventy five miles saved!†Within a month the new trail had virtually taken over freighting from the Missouri River west on the actual 182 mile trip though Omaha continued to claim it was 250 miles long. Otoe County had also just approved $20,000 in bonds for bridges over Salt Creek and the Blue River to be completed the following year. In 1865 it was claimed that 75% of all freight going west from the Missouri River went along the Nebraska City Cut-Off.
By the 1880s, with the new Nebraska City Cut-Off, the Union Pacific Railroad and with settlers in place, roads became largely confined to traveling on section lines and use of Saline Ford on Salt Creek at Ashland faded.
Saline Ford became Ashland in 1866 when a strip of land, previously in Cass County, was attached to Saunders County by the state legislature. Recently Ashland contended the Ox-Bow corridor was the second “heaviest-traveled route of the entire route in the whole region of Nebraska ... from 1840 to 1867.†Although some insist the current Nebraska State Historical Society’s marker has been moved from the actual trail site, ruts, and the trail itself are still visible if you know where to look.
10 scenic hiking trails in Nebraska
Boyer Chute National Wildlife Refuge - 68 miles from Lincoln
Platte River State Park - 32 miles from Lincoln
Pioneers Park Nature center - 7 miles from downtown Lincoln
Eugene T. Mahoney State Park - 25 miles from Lincoln
Indian Cave State Park - 93 miles from Lincoln
Ponca State Park - 145 miles from Lincoln
Smith Falls State Park - 317 miles from Lincoln
Scotts Bluff National Monument - 399 miles from Lincoln
Pine Ridge National Recreation Area - 439 miles from Lincoln
Toadstool Geologic Park - 473 miles from Lincoln
Did we miss something?
Historian Jim McKee, who still writes with a fountain pen, invites comments or questions. Write to him in care of the Journal Star or at jim@leebooksellers.com.