{{Use American English|date=April 2025}} {{more footnotes|date=February 2013}} {{Infobox historic site | name = Hastings Cutoff | native_name = | native_language = | image = HastingsCutoff.gif | image_size = 250 | caption = Route of the [[California Trail]] and Hastings Cutoff in the western United States | locmapin = | location = Humboldt River Basin, Elko County | area = | designation1 = Nevada Historical Marker | designation1_offname = West End of Hastings Cutoff | designation1_date = | designation1_number = 3<ref name=markers>{{cite web|title=Nevada Historical Markers|url=http://nvshpo.org/home-topmenu-17-17/historical-markers.html|publisher=Nevada State Historic Preservation Office|accessdate=23 February 2013|url-status=usurped|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130204045518/http://nvshpo.org/home-topmenu-17-17/historical-markers.html|archivedate=4 February 2013}}</ref> | designation2 = | designation2_offname = | designation2_date = | designation2_number = | designation3 = | designation3_offname = | designation3_date = | designation3_number = }}
The '''Hastings Cutoff''' was an alternative route for westward [[emigrants]] to travel to [[California]], as proposed by [[Lansford Hastings]] in ''The Emigrant's Guide to Oregon and California''.<ref>{{Citation | last = Beecher | first = Dale | title = Utah History Encyclopedia | publisher = University of Utah Press | year = 1994 | chapter = The Donner Party | chapter-url = https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/d/DONNER_PARTY.shtml | url = https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240328221510/https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/d/DONNER_PARTY.shtml | archive-date = March 28, 2024 | isbn =9780874804256 | access-date = April 17, 2024}}</ref> The ill-fated [[Donner Party]] infamously took the route in 1846. Hastings himself did not travel the cutoff prior to writing the guide.
==Description== A sentence in Hastings' guidebook briefly describes the cutoff:
<blockquote>The most direct route, for the California emigrants, would be to leave the Oregon route, about two hundred miles east from Fort Hall; thence bearing West Southwest, to the Salt Lake; and thence continuing down to the bay of St. Francisco, by the route just described. </blockquote>
The cutoff left the [[Oregon Trail]] at [[Fort Bridger]] in Wyoming, passed through the [[Wasatch Mountains|Wasatch Range]], across the [[Great Salt Lake Desert]], an 80-mile nearly water-less drive, looped around the [[Ruby Mountains]], and rejoined the [[California Trail]] about seven miles west of modern [[Elko, Nevada|Elko]] (also Emigrant Pass).
The west end of the cutoff is marked by [[Nevada Historical Markers|Nevada Historical Marker]] 3.<ref name=markers/>
==Trail use== Hastings led a small party overland late in 1845 and spent the winter in California. Significantly, his stay at [[Sutter's Fort]] coincided with a visit by [[John C. Frémont]], who had just explored the [[Great Salt Lake Desert]] and whose letter describing a new route to California would be widely published in Eastern newspapers. In April, Hastings set out with a few companions to meet the emigration of 1846. He stayed in the vicinity of the [[Sweetwater River (Wyoming)|Sweetwater River]] while an eastbound traveler carried his open letter inviting emigrants on the California Trail to meet him at Fort Bridger. Between 60 and 75 wagons did so and traveled with Hastings on his cutoff. They endured a difficult descent down [[Weber Canyon]],<ref>{{Citation | last = Bigler | first = David | title = Utah History Encyclopedia | publisher = University of Utah Press | year = 1994 | chapter = Harlan-Young Party | chapter-url = https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/h/HARLAN-YOUNG_PARTY.shtml | url = https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/ | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20240321165211/https://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia/h/HARLAN-YOUNG_PARTY.shtml | archive-date = March 21, 2024 | isbn = 9780874804256 | access-date = May 8, 2024}}</ref> a waterless drive of 80 miles across the [[Great Salt Lake Desert]], and a lengthy detour around the [[Ruby Mountains]]. Despite the usual trials of overland travel, they arrived safely in California.
[[File:2014-06-29 05 19 20 Sign for the California Trail along Leppy Pass Road near Pilot Peak, Nevada.JPG|thumb|left|Hastings Cutoff marker near [[Pilot Peak (Nevada)|Pilot Peak]]]] The [[Donner Party]], following in the wake of this initial party in 1846, had an unsuccessful experience with the Hastings Cutoff. They had arrived about a week late to travel with Hastings' party, and on his suggestion pioneered an alternate route to avoid Weber Canyon. The roadbuilding required through the Wasatch Mountains and the grueling [[Great Salt Lake Desert]] delayed them. When they had arrived at the [[California Trail]], they were delayed about a month. The party arrived at [[Donner Pass]] just as an early winter storm rendered it impassable. After becoming snowbound in the [[Sierra Nevada (U.S.)|Sierra Nevada]], many died of starvation, and some of the emigrants resorted to eating their animals and the deceased members of the group. In 1958, it was reported that path of the party's wagons on the [[Great Salt Lake Desert]] were visible not as ruts, but as discolorations where the underlying mud was exposed by the wagon wheels.<ref>{{cite journal |title=The Donner Road through the Great Salt Lake Desert |first=David E. |last=Miller |journal=Pacific Historical Review |volume=27 |number=1 |date=February 1958 |page=42 |jstor=3637209}}</ref> Recent sources report that the ruts the party's wagons left on Utah's salt flats can still be seen,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.history.com/news/donner-party-route-cannibalism|title = How the Donner Party Was Doomed by a Disastrous Shortcut| date=19 February 2019 }}</ref> though modern photographic evidence seems to be lacking.
In July 1847, [[Mormon]] leader [[Brigham Young]] led a vanguard company of emigrants from [[Winter Quarters (North Omaha, Nebraska)|Winter Quarters]], in what is now [[Omaha, Nebraska|Omaha]], to the future site of [[Salt Lake City]]. The company chose to use the Hastings Cutoff passing through modern-day [[Emigration Canyon, Utah|Emigration Canyon]]. Young's group made remarkable improvements to some parts of the cutoff on their journey so subsequent Mormon companies could more easily make it through to the Salt Lake valley. William Clayton, the company's [[scribe]], stated in his journals that the company tried to follow the route left by the Donner Party the previous year, yet only occasionally could identify the tracks.
The [[California gold rush]] created an enormous increase in westward traffic and several parties of 1849 and 1850 used the Hastings Cutoff. The year 1850 saw the development of a new route called the [[Salt Lake Cutoff]] that avoided the [[Great Salt Lake Desert]] west of the lake. Subsequently, the Hastings Cutoff was abandoned except for portions east of Salt Lake City, where it remained as the end of the [[Mormon Trail]].
== See also == *[[Donner Party timeline]]
==References== ===Citations=== {{Reflist}}
===General references=== * DeLafosse, Peter H., ed. ''Trailing the Pioneers: A Guide to Utah's Emigrant Trails, 1829–1869''. [[Utah State University Press]], 1994. * [[Lansford Hastings|Hastings, Lansford W.]]''The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California''. Bedford, Mass.: [[Applewood Books]], 1994. (Facsimile of the 1845 ed.) * [[Charles Kelly (historian)|Kelly, Charles]]. ''Salt Desert Trails.'' Hastings Cutoff Sesquicentennial ed. Edited by Peter H. DeLafosse. Salt Lake City: Western Epics, 1996. * [[J. Roderic Korns|Korns, J. Roderic]], and [[Dale L. Morgan]], eds. ''West from Fort Bridger: The Pioneering of Immigrant Trails Across Utah, 1846–1850''. Revised and updated by [[Will Bagley]] and [[Harold Schindler]]. Logan: [[Utah State University Press]], 1994. * Knight, Hal, ''111 Days to Zion''. Deseret Press, 1978. * [[Dale L. Morgan|Morgan, Dale L.]],'' Overland in 1846: Diaries and Letters of the California-Oregon Trail.'' Lincoln: [[University of Nebraska Press]], 1993. 2 vols. Reprint; originally published by Talisman Press in 1963. {{ISBN|0-8032-8202-8}}. * Spedden, H. Rush., ''The Fearful Long Drive: The 1846 Hastings Cutoff'' Overland Journal, [[Oregon-California Trails Association]], Vol. 12, No. 2, Summer 1994. * Spedden, H. Rush., ''Hastings Cutoff: Bryant's Trail to Skull Valley'' Overland Journal, [[Oregon-California Trails Association]], Vol. 23, No. 2, Summer 2005. * Spedden, H. Rush., ''The Donner Trail Across the Salt Lake Valley'' Overland Journal, [[Oregon-California Trails Association]], Vol. 26, No. 1, Summer 2008. * Spedden, H. Rush., ''Lansford Hastings, Orson Pratt, Google Earth, and GPS'' Overland Journal, [[Oregon-California Trails Association]], Vol. 28, No. 4, Summer 2010. * Tea, Roy D., ed. ''The Hastings Cutoff: Grantsville to Donner Springs, May 1996''. Salt Lake City, UT: [Utah Crossroads Chapter, [[Oregon-California Trails Association]]], 1996. * Tea, Roy D., ed. ''Hastings Longtripp: A Hastings Cutoff Trail Guide from Donner Spring to the Humboldt River''. Salt Lake City, UT: Utah Crossroads, [[Oregon-California Trails Association]], 1996. * Tea, Roy D., ed. ''The Hastings Cutoff: A Tragic Decision: The Weber Canyon Route''. Salt Lake City, UT: Utah Crossroads, [[Oregon-California Trails Association]], 2004.
== External links == {{commonscat|Hastings Cutoff (California Trail)}} * {{cite web|website=Utah Crossroads|url=http://www.utahcrossroads.org/RTFrames.htm|author=Tea, Roy|title=Hastings Cutoff|access-date=2006-10-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060927094914/http://utahcrossroads.org/RTFrames.htm|archive-date=2006-09-27|url-status=dead}} * {{cite web|website=Science Views|url=http://www.scienceviews.com/historical/hastingscutoff.html |title=Hastings Cutoff Trail Guides|author=Tea, Roy D.}} * [https://archive.org/details/GR_1815 The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California by Lansford Hastings], digitized book * [https://octa-trails.org/ Oregon-California Trails Association]
[[Category:California Trail]] [[Category:Donner Party]] [[Category:Historic trails and roads in Nevada]] [[Category:Historic trails and roads in Utah]] [[Category:Historic trails and roads in Wyoming]] [[Category:Ruby Mountains]] [[Category:Trails and roads in the American Old West]] [[Category:Wasatch Range]]