California Road
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The California Road was a route which ran through present-day Oklahoma (then known only as
Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...
), along the
Canadian River The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .California Gold Rush The California gold rush (1848–1855) began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought approximately 300,000 people to California from the rest of the U ...
. It was the southerly counterpart to the
California Trail The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail f ...
.Okamura, Ryoko. "California Road." ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture''.
Accessed August 22, 2018.
The California Road followed the route laid out by Captain Randolph B. Marcy escorting gold seekers during the spring of 1849. In 1850, Captain R.B. Marcy established Camp Arbuckle on the southern boundary of the Canadian River with close proximity to the
100th meridian west The meridian 100° west of the Prime Meridian of Greenwich is a line of longitude that extends from the North Pole across the Arctic Ocean, North America, the Pacific Ocean, the Southern Ocean, and Antarctica to the South Pole. The 100th meridi ...
. The
Army on the Frontier The "Army on the Frontier" is a term applied to the activities of the United States Army stationed near the frontier settlements from the beginning of national existence until about 1890, the end of the settlers' frontier. The principal functions ...
fortification served as a deterrent to the Plains Indian warfare and the safeguard of the California Road spanning Indian Territory. The
American frontier The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the Geography of the United States, geography, History of the United States, history, Folklore of the United States, folklore, and Cultur ...
trail converged at Fort Smith where the overland trail crossed into
Indian Territory Indian Territory and the Indian Territories are terms that generally described an evolving land area set aside by the Federal government of the United States, United States government for the relocation of Native Americans in the United States, ...
and generally followed the
Canadian River The Canadian River is the longest tributary of the Arkansas River in the United States. It is about long, starting in Colorado and traveling through New Mexico, the Texas Panhandle, and Oklahoma. The drainage area is about .Texas Panhandle. The trail continued across the Panhandle along the Canadian into New Mexico where it met an existing trail south out of Santa Fe to El Paso and west into California. The peak number of emigrants from the eastern United States to California was about twenty thousand on this route in 1849. The crossing of the east-west California Road with the north–south
Texas Road The Texas Road, also known as the Shawnee Trail, or Shawnee-Arbuckle Trail, was a major trade and emigrant route to Texas across Indian Territory (later Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri). Established during the Mexican War by emigrants rushing to ...
formed a natural point of settlement in Tobucksy County of the
Choctaw Nation The Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma (Choctaw: ''Chahta Okla'') is a Native American reservation occupying portions of southeastern Oklahoma in the United States. At roughly , it is the second-largest reservation in area after the Navajo, exceeding t ...
, a site originally called Bucklucksy.
James Jackson McAlester James Jackson McAlester (October 1, 1842 – September 21, 1920) was an American coal baron and politician active in Indian Territory and later Oklahoma. He served as a United States Marshal for Indian Territory from 1893 to 1897, one of three me ...
, an employee of licensed traders Reynolds and Hannaford convinced the firm to locate a
general store A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...
at that location in late 1869. This settlement eventually became
McAlester, Oklahoma McAlester is the county seat of Pittsburg County, Oklahoma. The population was 18,363 at the time of the 2010 census, a 3.4 percent increase from 17,783 at the 2000 census.Shuller, Thurman"McAlester" profile ''Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and ...
. Prominent landmarks in western Indian Territory were
Rock Mary Rock Mary, in Caddo County, Oklahoma, was a prominent landmark on the California Road. It was named in 1849 for Mary Conway, the then 17-year-old niece of James Sevier Conway, the Governor of Arkansas. Mary was the eldest daughter of Dr. John R ...
and the Antelope Hills.


The Prairie Traveler

"Another road leaves Fort Smith and runs up the south side of the Canadian River to Santa Fé and Albuquerque in New Mexico. This route is set down upon most of the maps of the present day as having been discovered and explored by various persons, but my own name seems to have been carefully excluded from the list. Whether this omission has been intentional or not, I leave for the authors to determine. I shall merely remark that I had the command and entire direction of an expedition which in 1849 discovered, explored, located, and marked out this identical wagon road from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Santa Fé, New Mexico, and that this road, for the greater portion of the distance, is the same that has been since recommended for a Pacific railway." File:Cottonwood Spring.jpg, Cottonwood Spring Texas Historical Marker just north of Jean on the southern route. File:Marcy Trail.jpg, Texas Historical Marker on Highway 82 east of Ringgold. File:Texas Historical Marker trail route.jpg, Texas Historical Marker northeast of Amarillo, on Highway 136 just north of the intersection with 245, commemorating the
Josiah Gregg Josiah Gregg (19 July 1806 – 25 February 1850) was an American merchant, explorer, naturalist, and author of '' Commerce of the Prairies'', about the American Southwest and parts of northern Mexico. He collected many previously undescribed pla ...
route.


See also

*
California Trail The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail f ...


References

{{reflist


Further reading

*Dott, Robert H. "Lieutenant Simpson's California Road Across Oklahoma," ''The Chronicles of Oklahoma'' 38 (Summer 1960). *Foreman, Grant ''Marcy and the Gold Seekers: The Journal of Captain R. B. Marcy, with an Account of the Gold Rush Over the Southern Route'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968). *Hollon, W. Eugene. ''Beyond the Cross Timbers: The Travels of Randolph B. Marcy, 1812-1887'' (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1955). *Hunt, Thomas H. ''Ghost Trails To California'' (Palo Alto, Calif.: American West Publishing Company, 1974). *Potter, David Morris. ''Trail to California: The Overland Journal of Vincent Geiger and Wakeman Bryarly'' (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1945). *Wright, Muriel H. "Historical Places on the Old Stage Line from Fort Smith to Red River," ''The Chronicles of Oklahoma'' 11 (June 1933).


External links


Texas Historical Marker near Amarillo

Texas Historical Marker near Adrian

Texas Historical Marker near Borger


* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090914062925/http://digital.library.okstate.edu/encyclopedia/entries/C/CA012.html Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture - California Road
Oklahoma Digital Maps: Digital Collections of Oklahoma and Indian Territory
Trails and roads in the American Old West Historic trails and roads in Missouri Historic trails and roads in Kansas Historic trails and roads in Oklahoma