The Gold Seekers

The Gold Seekers

During the summer of 1848 Parley P. Pratt explored east of Salt Lake Valley for an easier road across the mountains than that the Pioneers had traveled. The result was his Golden Pass Road, opened after much labor, as a toll-road in June, 1850. It had easier grades than the old road, but maintenance was difficult in the gorge of Parleys Canyon, and after its first year, saw little use. During that same summer of 1848 a small pack party of California emigrants, led by Samuel J. Hensley having failed in an effort to cross the miry Salt Desert, pioneered a route around the north shore of Great Salt Lake intersecting the California Trail near City of Rocks. Eastbound Mormon Battalion members tried the new trail, and their wagons converted it into a permanent road, the Salt Lake Cutoff.

The inrush of goldseekers into Salt Lake Valley, beginning in 1849, incised all these trails deeply into the earth. The great majority took the Salt Lake Cutoff, though the Hastings Cutoff saw some use. Many who were late on the trail in 1849 and did not wish to winter in the Valley or face Sierra Snow waited till October, then went south with a Mormon pilot Jefferson Hunt, their wagons cutting a deep track down the length of Utah which would become known as the Southern Road to Los Angeles. Impatient and quarrelsome as were most large parties, the company broke up beyond the Little Salt Lake, and headed by detachments into the deserts west, hoping to make a "cutoff" to the mines. The majority got no farther than Beaver Dam Wash before turning south to regain the established trail. Others kept on as far as the Muddy before veering south to the Spanish Trail and salvation. A few continued on west, to give name at last to Death Valley.

1. The ____ Pass was Parley Pratt's answer to entering the Salt Lake valley.

South
Golden
Cutoff
Muddy

2. ____ pioneered a route around the north shore of Great Salt Lake.

Hunt
Mormons
Pratt
Hensley

3. The inrush of goldseekers began in ____ .

1849
1850
1848
1847

4. The great majority of goldseekers used the ____ cutoff.

Los Angeles
Hastings
Salt Lake
Beaver Dam

5. The Mormon pilot ____ helped wagons make their way to Los Angeles.

Parley P. Pratt
Jefferson Hunt
Samuel J. Hensley
Robert Hastings

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