You've
just stumbled on the most controversial part of all
of Route 40.net: the story of Lansford W. Hastings and
his shortcut to California.
In
1846, Lansford W. Hastings sought to bring people to
California. Most scholars agree that his motive was
to establish his own empire in the model of Sam Houston.
To lure pioneers, he wrote an Emigrant's Guide to Oregon
and California, a booklet that was based on more imagination
that fact. Some label Hastings a fraud and even classify
him in the cult leader ranks; other call him a visionary
who was at worst misguided and uninformed. Hastings
had a colorful past that took him to wherever crowds
gathered. Most scholars agree that Hastings sought leadership.
For a while he was active in the temperance movement,
however his love of the drink proved to be an obstacle.
So, Hastings set his eyes on emigrants heading to California.
Although his guide was riddled with
inaccuracies, it attracted the attention of many emigrants
including the Donner-Reed party of 1846. These pioneers
put all of their faith in Hastings' claims to a shortcut
and at Fort Bridger, Wyoming separated from the main
lanes of westward travel. Alone, they cut a wagon trail
across thick wooded forests and incredibly rocky terrain.
In short, the Donner-Reed party was doing the difficult
part of actually cutting the trail west. The cost of
doing so expended much of the pioneers' valuable time
and energy -- sometimes they would make less than a
mile a day.
When the Donner-Reed party reached the
Great Salt Lake, they thought the worst was behind them.
Instead the further west they went, the harder it got.
First the group had to traverse the stark and barren
salt flats, a 90-mile expanse of nothing but salt and
alkali. Next, the group had to endure the swampy and
meandering Humboldt River. When the river dried up,
they had to endure a crossing of the Forty Mile Desert
- another lengthy expanse with no potable water. By
the time they reached the solid vertical wall of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains, it was October and the group
was seriously behind schedule.
Hastings, aware that a wagon team was
following his trail, left messages for the Donner-Reed
party hoping to avert disaster. But it was too late.
The group had crossed the point of no return and one
way or another, they would be facing extreme hardship
and peril. When the group reached the Sierra Nevada
Mountains, virtually the entire group cursed Hastings
and his supposed shortcut. As one of the Donner-Reed
group advised many years later, "...don't never
take no cutoffs."
On the first day the group attempted
to cross the Sierras, it began to snow. The snow didn't
stop until it had reached almost twenty feet in depth.
Stranded, the party made a camp at what is now Donner
Lake. By the following spring, 35 of the 88 pioneers
had died; those that survived did so primarily by consuming
the flesh of those who had died.
Was Hastings to blame for the Donner-Reed
party's tragedy. Most would agree that the blame is
shared. Hastings was certainly over enthusiastic about
his cutoff and made many claims that weren't true. The
Donner-Reed group were in so much of a hurry they were
willing to gamble on the shortcut to save a few days
of travel time. Also, the Donner-Reed party was ill-prepared
for the perils and challenges of blazing a new trail
across virtually unknown territory.
Map showing the path of Hastings' Cutoff, the Oregon
and California Trails and Route 40.
Route 40 roughly parallels Hastings' Cutoff between
Salt Lake City, Utah and Silver Zone Pass in Nevada.
For more information, visit these fine
web sites:
Roy
Tea's Hastings Trail Pages - Mr. Tea's field work
should be consulted by those interested in retracing
the trail.
OCTA's
Hastings Pages
OCTA
- California-Nevada Chapters
