The Daily Photograph™

Immigrants had to cross the Platte by July First

And couldn’t cross most years much before June First. Weather constraints made the window for fording the Platte River quite narrow. The river was too high with snow melt in Spring, and the trek to California or Oregon was likely to end in mountain snows if you left things too late.

Before Louis Guinard built his toll bridge, only two ways to finally cross the river were possible, This one, at Red Butte, and another called “Mormon Crossing”, later “Mormon Ferry,” a few miles downriver.

Immigrants had to ford the river, driving the wagons across a shifting floor of sandbars, a task made easier by low water. Often, in Spring, several early wagon trains would gather and encamp, awaiting an auspicious day. When it arrived, the scene could become generally as bad as depicted in the movie “How the West Was Won” This ford was the reason the high-end Conestoga wagons were built to be adequate water vessels.

Thanks for looking.