National Old Trails Monument

Every road that has crossed the Colorado here followed a trail the Mojave walked first. Father Francisco Garces came through in 1776 with Mojave guides, and Jedediah Smith crossed in 1826; the National Old Trails Highway, and Route 66 after it, used the same break in the riverbank. A ferry worked the crossing until a flood carried it off in 1914. The 1978 plaque was raised jointly by the state, two counties and the Fort Mojave Indian Tribe, which is rarer on a marker than it should be.

What the plaque says

This bridge marks the site where the National Old Trails Highway, later Highway 66, crossed the Colorado River. It links the Mojave Indian lands visited by Father Garcés in 1776. Near this location the American Explorer, Jedediah Smith and his band of Rocky Mountain men, crossed the river in 1826 and opened the Pioneer Trail into Southern California.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Needles — 0.7 mi
  Route 66's Colorado River gateway into California, anchored by El Garces, the Harvey House that Mojave hands built.
• Oatman — 18 mi
  A gold camp in the Black Mountains that outlived its mines, now run by wild burros — reached by the wildest switchbacks left on Route 66, and named for a history worth telling straight.
• Goffs — 26 mi
  A near-ghost on the pre-1931 Route 66 alignment, keeper of a 1914 desert schoolhouse and a WWII Army camp.

More markers nearby

• Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 12 mi
• Von Schmidt State Boundary Monument — 12 mi
• Camp Ibis — 15 mi
• Oatman Arizona and its Burros — 18 mi