Idaho National Laboratory Cultural Resource Management Plan

Figure 13. Big Lost River during seasonal storm
and high water flow.
it clear that it was possible to live off the land in
better years, the life these rugged individuals led—
that of trapper, hunter, fortune seeker—was not
what the vast majority of American emigrants
sought (Reisner 1979).
Emigrants
Eventually, as promises of abundant land,
game, rivers, ores, and agreeable climates in
California, Oregon, and Washington spread, a thin
ribbon of civilization began to trickle out to the
resource-rich west, especially from the east. This
trickle eventually became a stream with the
establishment of the Oregon Trail in 1836. In
order to avoid Indian hostilities along the Snake
River, Tim Goodale established a northern
extension of the Oregon Trail through the area
along an established fur-trading route, and
emigrant wagons used it as early as 1852. A
portion of Goodale’s or Jeffrey’s Cutoff (Dykes
1989; Idaho State Historical Society n.d.; Merrill
1990) is still recognizable in the southwestern
corner of INL (see Figure 14 and Figure 15).
Later, the cutoff was used for cattle drives
from Idaho, Washington, and Oregon to shipping
points in Wyoming. After heavy herd stock losses
occurred in the 1880s, cattle drives were curtailed
and seasonal sheep drives traversed the route.
Figure 14. Reenactment of an emigrant wagon
train at Goodale’s Cutoff.
Mining and Transportation
In the 1860s through the 1880s, discoveries of
gold and other precious metals in central Idaho
brought many miners, and boomtowns sprang up
in areas just north and west of present day INL
boundaries. These mid- to late-1800s mining
booms created a need for transportation systems
between the newly established mining towns north
of INL, such as Mackay and Leadore, and their
supply stations in older towns, such as Idaho Falls
to the east and Blackfoot further to the south.
Freighting and staging became a major business,
and a number of companies were formed in order
to meet the demand for mining equipment,
passenger service, dry goods, and other supplies.
Old wagon roads and trails became stage and
freight lines virtually overnight (see Figure 15),
and several new trails were forged across the
desert (Trego 1935).
Because of the freshwater springs that bubble
from its slopes within the otherwise dry desert, the
Big Southern Butte served as a stop for nearly all
stage, freight, and later rail lines. Berryman and
Rogers, Joe Skelton, and Henry Leatherman, three
of the earliest freighters to cross the desert from
Idaho Falls and Blackfoot to Arco, all used the Big
Southern Butte as a way station (Olsen 1978;
Trego 1928).
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