Harry Wade Exit Route

The Death Valley markers north of here narrate people going in. This one is about getting out. Harry Wade brought his ox-drawn wagon south out of the valley in 1849 with his wife and children aboard, worked a way through, and struck the known Spanish Trail near this point, which meant Cajon Pass and the settlements beyond it. He is remembered because he came out whole and still had the wagon, which most of that caravan could not say.

What the plaque says

Some 100 wagons found themselves in Salt Lake City too late to cross the Sierra Nevada. They banded together under the name of Sand Walking Co. and started for the gold fields in California over the old Spanish Trail. After being in Death Valley with the ill-fated 1849 caravan, Harry Wade found this exit route for his ox-drawn wagon, thereby saving his life and those of his wife and children. At this point the Wade party came upon the known Spanish trail to Cajon Pass.

Where it stands