John Bidwell

The party traveled this far with the Jesuit Pierre-Jean De Smet and his guide, Thomas Fitzpatrick, and parted from them here on August 11, 1841, by most accounts, a day before the sign's date. Its captain was John Bartleson; Bidwell was its clerk. Those who turned south were thirty-two men and one woman, Nancy Kelsey, eighteen, riding with her infant daughter in front of her on the horse. They reached John Marsh's ranch below Mount Diablo on November 4, the first emigrant party to cross overland to California.

What the plaque says

John Bidwell In 1840, John Bidwell began to assemble emigrants from Missouri to open a road to California; and a year later, he set out with a party of 69 Pacific Coast pioneers. When they reached here, August 12, 1841, half of his group decided to go northwest to Oregon instead. But his California crew turned south down Bear River to try a terrible route west of Salt Lake. So Joseph R. Chiles returned east in 1842 to find a practical California Trail across Idaho through Fort Hall and Granite Pass. 219 Text prepared by the Idaho Historical Society Marker made & installed by Idaho Transportation Department

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Soda Springs Geyser — 5.0 mi
  Drillers looking for hot water for a swimming pool hit cold soda water under pressure. The town put the geyser on a timer.
• Black Canyon of the Bear River — 5.5 mi
  A basalt gorge cut by a river that, most of the year, now runs past it in a pipe.
• Lava Hot Springs — 16 mi
  The pools belong to the state because the springs left the Fort Hall Reservation and Congress handed them to Idaho in 1902.
• National Oregon/California Trail Center — 31 mi
  Emigrants came down off Big Hill and camped in the clover here. Brigham Young renamed the town; the trail center brings the camp back in costume.

More markers nearby

• Bear River Lava — steps away
• Soda Springs — 3.9 mi
• Camp Connor — 3.9 mi
• Hooper Spring — 5.1 mi