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Covered Wagon Roads to the American West
Gregory M. Franzwa

This is the first-ever comprehensive map of emigrant trails from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Coast. It includes several routes of the California Trail—from Council Bluffs, Iowa, and from St. Joseph, Missouri. It also includes the north bank trail along the Platte River system, as well as the Oregon Trail from Independence, Missouri. All of the complicated Sublette Cutoff routes are here, and such Oregon-California cutoffs as the Lander Road, Hudspeth Cutoff, Overland Trail, Hastings Cutoff, Cherokee Trail, the Applegate Trail, Lassen and Nobles Trails. Plus lots more.

A few trails are included which aren’t really covered wagon roads—the entire Lewis and Clark trail system, the extraordinary Anza Trail from deep in old Mexico to San Francisco, and the Pony Express. We have included the Santa Fe Trail and the more important southern roads, such as Beale’s, the Old Spanish Trail, the Gila, and Cooke’s Wagon Road.

The full-color map is stunningly beautiful. The Great Plains are reproduced in shades of green. The High Plains are tan. The peaks are snowy white, the rivers blue. All trails appear as red lines with thin white borders.

Most of the trail routings came from the various National Park Service studies, from offices in Denver, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and Madison, Wisconsin. Many of the lines were established by our own Patrice Press, and donated years ago to the National Park Service.

The best news of all, the map, 36" x 24" high, retails for $9.95 in a laminated version, which is shipped in a mailing tube. An uncoated version is available folded down to 9" x 8", for $8.95.