Page:The Pacific Monthly volume 17.djvu/741

 The Pacific Monthly

Vol. XVII

The Story of the Shasta Route

By W. F. Bailey

HE process by which our great lines of railroads have reached their present condition of efficiency is one of the most interesting chapters in the history of the Pacific Coast.

The Indian trail, the fur traders' travoix, emigrant route, Government survey, stage line and the railroad in the order named have been the steps in the evolution of our channels of communication throughout the West.

That section of the Pacific Coast now traversed by the trains of the Southern Pacific Company, operating the Shasta Route between Portland and San Francisco, has been no exception to this rule.

Ethnologists as well as traditions tell us of migrations from the Puget Sound country to California and very probably as far south as Mexico. The Aztec tradition of a far northern origin of their race and a subse- quent migration to the south is so well authenticated as to receive commemoration in the flag and coat of arms of the republic.

Even within historic times it has been cus- tomary for the Navajoes from Arizona to go as far north as the Columbia River on trad- ing expeditions.

The fur traders were first represented, so far as we have any authenticated record, by a party of "free trappers" or "mountain men" under the leadership of Jeddediah S. Smith. This party belonged to the numer- ous unorganized trappers so interestingly depicted by Washington Irving in his Life of Captain Bonneville. In 1824 they wan- dered from their usual hunting-grounds in Utah and Wyoming to the west. Crossing the desert, they trapped along the St. Marys or Humboldt River with little success, finally reaching the Sierra Nevadas, which they crossed into the Sacramento Valley. Here they found an ideal hunting-ground. Game was plenty, the Indians inoffensive, and no trace of any competition.

Their supplies becoming exhausted. "Jed" Smith, the leading spirit among them, was selected to return to the rendezvous on Green River in Wyoming to procure additional stock of powder and lead, the only two