The Great Military Road from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Riley joined the Oregon Trail at Smith's Ferry on the Kansas River in the 1850s, and both followed a path originally traveled by fur trader James Clyman in 1827. After passing through Saint Mary's, the road hugged the base of the bluffs north of the Kansas River until crossing the Vermillion River at Louis Vieux's Ferry, where the routes separated, with the Oregon Trail going northwest toward Westmoreland and the road continuing toward Louisville and Fort Riley. Early travelers called this the Hill Road. It was followed by fur traders in the 1830s, gold seekers and emigrants in the 1840s, and settlers and army trains in the 1850s, and it survived for several decades.