The Overland and Cherokee Trails cross southern Wyoming. For a major part of the route, they run together or parallel. Therefore, in this website, we treat them as a common trails corridor, much as we do the main routes of the Oregon, California, Mormon Pioneer, and Pony Express Historic Trails. The Overland and Cherokee emigrant and stage routes served as secondary migration routes in the mid to late 1800s.

The Overland Trail

The Overland Trail Mail route was established and owned by Ben Holladay, the "Stagecoach King." Sometimes confused with the "Oregon" or "California" Trail, which actually followed the North Platte Valley from Nebraska through Wyoming, the Overland Trail refers specifically to that portion of the mail and passenger route, established in 1862, that avoided the Indian uprisings that were occurring on the Oregon Trail farther north through central Wyoming along the Sweetwater-South Pass route. In July, 1862, the US Post Office Department ordered Ben Holladay, and the Overland Stage Company, to officially relocate from the central Wyoming route, to a route which had been known, in part, as the Cherokee Trail. Not just a cutoff or a detour, it became for a while the only emigrant route on which the US Government would allow travel, and consequently was the principal corridor to the west from 1862 to 1868.

The Overland Trail ran westward from Atchison, Kansas, following the Oregon Trail more or less, with some diversions created by Ben Holladay, such as the Oketo Cutoff in Kansas. At Julesburg, Colorado, it essentially left the Oregon Trail, paralleling, on the south side, the South Platte River to Latham (present day Greeley). Latham was a junction: one could travel south to the Cherry Creek settlement of Denver, or cross the river and loop north along the foothills, following the established Cherokee Trail, crossing the Cache la Poudre River at LaPorte, CO.

Continuing north, the Overland Trail split into at least two separate routes between LaPorte and Virginia Dale. One route veered off to the east toward Ft. Laramie, located about 50 miles north of present day Cheyenne; the other route, which was essentially the old Cherokee Trail, took a bit more westerly route to the home station at Virginia Dale. Beyond Virginia Dale, the first station established in Wyoming was Willow Springs, about one mile to the west of present day Tie Siding. From there the trail crossed the Laramie Plains and skirted the north side of Elk Mountain near Fort Halleck, and the Medicine Bow Mountains. Crossing the North Platte near the mouth of Sage Creek, it continued west, through Bridger's Pass, roughly paralleling present day Highway I-80 and the Union Pacific Railroad through Wyoming, finally rejoining the Oregon Trail again in western Wyoming at Ft. Bridger.

It is estimated that as many as 20,000 emigrants traveled the Overland Trail each year, from 1862 to 1868. Many trail diaries mention the number of people and stock on the trail, and Dr. J. H. Finfrock, the surgeon at Fort Halleck, kept tallies of the wagons, men, women, children and livestock passing through.

The Cherokee Trail

In 1849 a group of whites from Washington County, Arkansas, and Cherokee from the Nation rendezvoused on the Grand (Neosho) River at the Grand Saline for the sole purpose of going to the California Goldfields. They traveled under the leaderhip of Captain Lewis Evans, the Sheriff of Evansville, Arkansas. They were the first wagons over Fremont's Trail in the area and were using his journals. The 1849 White/Cherokee Pack Company followed a trail along the front range of Colorado then turned west along Colorado/Wyoming Border toward Fort Davy Crocket and then on to Fort Bridger. They blazed the Evans Northern Cherokee Trail south of Elk Mountain in Wyoming and then across the Red Desert to Fort Bridger. (Fremont did not follow this route, but had turned North toward the Oregon Trail.)

The Cherokee Indians were not a nomadic tribe. Most were Masons, literate in both English and Cherokee. In 1850 four separate wagon trains of whites/Cherokee arrived at the South Platte in present Denver, crossed the South Platte and then proceeded north to Laporte and onto the Laramie Plains where they turned west along the Colorado/ Wyoming border via the Fort Davy Crockett trail to Fort Bridger. The lead wagon company cut the road from Tie Siding to Fort Bridger known as the 1850 or Southern Cherokee Trail.

Both routes were heavily used. Neither the 1849 nor the 1850 group went over Bridger Pass, as it was not explored until 1850, and was not open for wagons or used by military until 1858. From 1858 until 1862 the route over Bridger Pass was the Cherokee Trail, a variation of the Evans 1849 trail. After the Overland Stage moved down onto it, it was called the Cherokee/Overland Trail.

All of the three Cherokee trails were used by those claiming homesteads in Wyoming and later as many county roads in Wyoming.