Alcove Springs & the Oregon Trail

Travelers knew this spring long before the Donner party camped here. Its 1971 National Register nomination records James Clyman stopping in 1827 with a pack train carrying furs of William Ashley and the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, a party of surveyors in 1832, and the sixty people of the Bidwell-Bartleson party in 1841. Who gave the spring its name is less settled: some sources credit Edwin Bryant, whose account supplies the plaque's quotation, and others John Denton, who carved the name in the rock. James F. Reed's initials can still be read there.

What the plaque says

Alcove Springs & the Oregon Trail Six miles northwest is Alcove Springs, named in 1846 by appreciative travelers on the Oregon trail who carved the name on the surrounding rocks and trees. One described the Springs as "a beautiful cascade of water . . . altogether one of the most romantic spots I ever saw." This country was well-known to early-day traders and "mountain men" as well as to later travelers to the Far West. John C. Fremont and his 1842 exploring expedition bivouacked at the Springs, and Marcus Whitman, with a thousand emigrants to Oregon, stopped there in 1843. Utah-bound Mormons and California-bound goldseekers followed, for only a short distance above was Inde- pendence Crossing, the famous ford across the Big Blue river. The Donner party, most of whom later froze or starved in the Sierras, buried its first member, Sarah Keyes, near the Springs in 1846. The great Tuttle Creek Reservoir at full pool level extends along the Big Blue from Independence Crossing southward nearly to Manhattan. Erected by Kansas Historical Society and State Highway Commission

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Marysville — 11 mi
• Hollenberg Ranch and the Pony Express — 16 mi
• Hollenberg Ranch Pony Express Station — 18 mi
• The California-Oregon Trail — 25 mi