History of Utah, 1540-1886 - Brigham Young University

ROUTE RECOMMENDED BY STANSBURY. 467
thousand square miles. 55 He then resolved to search
out on his return journey some practicable route to
the southward of South Pass, though a part of it
lay through the territory where Sioux, Blackfoot,
Snake, and Utah were used to meet in conflict. Disposing
of his wagons and spare instruments to the
Mormons, by whom he was furnished with a sufficient
escort, he bade them a kindly farewell, and returned
by way of Bridger's and Cheyenne passes to Fort
Leavenworth.
The route recommended by Stansbury for the portion
of a transcontinental railroad between the Missouri,
near Independence, and Salt Lake City was by way
of the Republican fork and the south fork of the
Platte; thence by way of Lodge Pole Creek, and
skirting the southern extremity of the Black Hills to
the Laramie Plains; thence crossing the north fork of
the Platte to South Pass; thence by way of Bear
River Valley to Fort Bridger; from that point by
way of Black Fork and turning the Uintah Range
to the Kamas prairie, whence the route to the capital
lay through the valley of the Timpanogos. 53
In 1853 Gunnison, who had now been promoted to
the rank of captain, was ordered to survey a route
farther to the south, by way of the Huerfano River
and the pass of Coochetopa; thence through the valleys
of the Grand and Green rivers; thence to the
vegas de Santa Clara and the Nicollet River; thence
northward on a return route to Lake Utah, from
which point he was to explore the most available
55 Stansbury's field-work is thus summarized: 1. The selection and measurement
of a base-line 6 miles in length; 2. The erection of 24 principal
triangulation stations; 3. The survey of G. S. Lake, the shore-line of which
is stated at 291 miles; 4. The survey of the islands, 96 miles; 5. The survey
of Lake Utah, 76 miles; 6. The survey of the Jordan and some of its
tributaries, 50 miles, making in all 513 miles; 7. The observations from different
triangular stations extending from the northern extremity of G. S. Lake
to the southern boundary of the valley of Lake Utah. Exped. to Valley of G.
S. Lake, 216.
56 Id., 227, 261-3; Gunnison's The Mormons, 152. There is little difference
in the line of route laid down by either. Stansbury suggests that from
Kamas prairie the road might fork, one branch descending the Wasatch
Range by the Golden Pass, and the other following the Timpanogos Valley.