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.

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