A Route for the Overland Stage:
James H.
Simpson’s 1859 Trail Across the Great Basin
Jesse G.
Petersen
Foreword by David L. Bigler
The 1859 exploration of the Great Basin by army
topographical engineer James Simpson opened up one of the West’s
most important transportation and communications corridors, a vital
link between the Pacific Coast and the rest of the nation. It became
the route of the Pony Express and the Overland Mail and Stage, the
line of the Pacific telegraph, a major wagon road for freighters and
emigrants, and later, the historic 1913 Lincoln Highway.
No one has accurately tracked or mapped
Simpson’s original route until now. Jesse Petersen shows in words,
maps, and photos exactly where the explorer went, and camped.
Sharing his detective-like reasoning as he walked or drove the
entire trail west, and Simpson’s variant route returning east,
Petersen takes readers on a mountain and desert trek through some of
America’s most remote and striking landscapes. Included in the
appendix are latitude/longitude GPS readings for 338 sites along the
Simpson trail.
8.5 x 11 inches,
240 pages, 106 photos, 69 maps, 4 drawings
ISBN 978-0-87421-636-3
(Utah State University Press, marketed by The Patrice Press)
appendix, notes, index,
paperback only, $24.95 + $4.95 s/h.
