The Journey Through Nevada

Mormon Station was an important supply stop for gold seekers traveling to California. Through Nevada, they followed the Humboldt River to the Humboldt Sink, then faced a brutal 40 mile desert crossing over a scorching plain without water or grass for livestock. Those who survived reached the Carson Sink and followed the Carson River to the foot of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but by then their supplies were exhausted and their animals were extremely weak. At Mormon Station, travelers could buy supplies for the final trek across the mountains. James F. Wilkins in 1849 lamented the ordeal, Eleazer Stillman Ingalls in 1850 recalled dead horses, mules, and oxen by the roadside with their hams cut out for food, and John Francis Freeman in 1852 remembered a road so dusty that travelers ate it, drank it, and breathed it.

Genoa, Nevada · United States