Goodale's Cutoff

The 1862 party was the largest wagon train recorded on any part of the Oregon Trail: 1,095 people, 338 wagons and about 2,900 head of stock, so long that it took more than three hours to get into or out of camp. They asked for Goodale, a trader who knew the Shoshone and fur-trade trails north of the Snake, after Shoshone and Bannock resistance to the main road turned deadly that summer. By 1863 seven of every ten wagons bound from Fort Hall to Boise came this way. The road itself followed paths the Shoshone had used for centuries.

What the plaque says

Goodale's Cutoff An old emigrant road headed west across Camas Prairie and then descended to the valley below on it's way to rejoin the Oregon Trail 28 miles west of here. This route, discovered by Donald Mackenzie's fur trade party in 1820, came into use for emigrant wagons in 1852. Indian hostility along the regular Oregon Trail to the south led Timothy Goodale to bring a large emigrant party of Idaho pioneers this way in 1862, and after that, the road was known as Goodale's cutoff. 305 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Castle Rock — steps away
• Gold Mines — 1.9 mi
• Toll Gate — 14 mi
• Rattlesnake Station — 20 mi