Historical Marker
Trail of the John C. Frémont 1844 Expedition
Bridgeport, Mono County · California
Frémont's expedition crossed northern Mono County in the last week of January 1844, mapping as it went, then went over the Sierra to rest at Sutter's Fort before leaving California by the Old Spanish Trail. The landmark repays a close reading. The state register titles it the 1884 expedition while its own explanatory text gives 1844 in the opening line, so the official listing contradicts itself by forty years — and the body text, not the title, is the one that is right.
What the plaque says
On January 27th, a cold winter day in 1844, Captain John C. Fremont and his guide Kit Carson led a small band of half-starved men west past this point. They were in search of the fabled Buena Ventura River, which they believed would give them easy passage through the high range to the west and on to the fort of John Sutter. A short way northwest of here, they were forced to abandon their howitzer because of the deep snow, as their tired men could no longer pull the 1500 pound gun and caisson. In desperation, Fremont decided to force a winter crossing of the great Sierra Nevada. They succeeded, and with his band of courageous men reprovisioned themselves at Sutter's Fort and then recrossed the Great Basin arriving in St. Louis, Missouri on August 6, 1844. A year later, Fremont was back in California and was the United States officer who, on January 15, 1847, received the surrender of the California forces under General Andres Pico at Cahuenga Pass.
Where it stands
38.34833, -119.36194 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Bodie State Historic Park — 21 miA gold town of ten thousand left exactly as it emptied, held in arrested decay at 8,375 feet.
- Mono Lake — 32 miA saline lake older than most of the Sierra, with tufa towers and a water fight it eventually won.