Massive freighting of supplies by ox and mule trains grew directly from the establishment of Fort Kearny and other western military posts. The Mormon War and the discovery of gold in the Colorado and Montana territories increased this trade, and Nebraska City became a major freighting center between 1858 and 1865. Early freighters used the Ox-Bow Trail, which looped northward to the Platte Valley and west to Fort Kearny, but competition with other Missouri River towns forced them to seek a shorter, quicker route. The Nebraska City-Fort Kearny Cut-off passed near this point and was originally marked by a plowed furrow of over 180 miles. In 1862 Joseph Brown brought his famed steam wagon to Nebraska, hoping it would revolutionize plains freighting, and bridges and other improvements were made to facilitate it. The experiment failed, and the wagon never got beyond the outskirts of Nebraska City; even so, the cut-off also became known as the Steam Wagon Road. Overland freighting reached its peak in 1865, when over 44 million pounds of supplies were shipped from Nebraska City, but the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad across Nebraska signaled the end of major freighting on this trail.