The Bullwhackers

After the great migrations of settlers and goldseekers passed here in the 1840’s and 50’s, the Oregon Trail remained an important communications and supply route. Wagon trains hauled provisions to Fort Laramie and other army posts west of here. The heavy wagons were pulled by teams of oxen prodded along by trail-hardened men known as “bullwhackers.” William Henry Jackson, later a renowned frontier artist and photographer, traveled west as a bullwhacker at age 23. Jackson and his bull train camped at this site in 1866 during a six-month journey from Nebraska City to Salt Lake City. From sketches made here, Jackson later produced a painting of Mitchell Pass. He wrote, “Bullwhacking is an art not to be learned in a week or a month . . . Only a cunning hand can make an 18-foot whip crack out like a rifle shot – or cut a notch in a lagging bull’s hind quarter.”

Gering, Nebraska · United States