The Old Mojave Trail was a natural riverbed highway first used by Ute, Mojave, Chemehuevi, and Paiute Indians on the move. In 1776 Padre Garces traveled it as a missionary, explorer, and martyr. In 1826 Jedediah Smith of Salt Lake City used it as a hunter-trapper. In 1829 William Wolfskill of New Mexico became the first of the annual caravan traders bound for the coast. In 1844 Capt. John C Fremont traveled it as a pathfinder and mapmaker. In 1848 the Mormon Battalion, disbanded in Los Angeles, took it on the way to Utah. In 1849 the first wagons of the gold seekers passed along it. Thereafter it was used continually by Mormons, immigrants, fortune seekers, freighters, military expeditions, and sight-seeing tourists.
