Cherokee Trail

History

The Cherokee Trail was not a single, newly blazed path. Parts of it had been used decades earlier, with General William Ashley traveling a section as early as 1824, and Oregon-bound emigrants noting the routes around Browns Park in 1839. By 1849, three ways across the Continental Divide were known: Twin Groves in Wyoming, a spot near present-day Rawlings, and Bridger's Pass. The Cherokee Trail followed the Twin Groves route.

During the 1860s, the outlaw L. H. Musgrove used this trail to move from Colorado into Wyoming. Originally from Mississippi, he had gone to California for the Gold Rush but chose crime over mining. Arrested for murder at Fort Halleck, Wyoming, in 1863, he was taken to Denver for trial but freed on a technicality. He then formed the Musgrove Gang, a horse theft ring that struck government posts and wagon trains along the Colorado Front Range, sticking to the Cherokee Trail.

Eventually captured and jailed in Denver, Musgrove spread a rumor from his cell that friends would break him out. In response, vigilantes demanded the prisoner be handed over. The guards did not resist, and the vigilantes took Musgrove to the Larimer Street bridge, where they hanged him on November 23, 1868.

Route description

The trail began near present-day Salina, Oklahoma, and went west along the Arkansas River Valley in Colorado to the mouth of Black Squirrel Creek, a tributary of Cherry Creek. It followed Cherry Creek to the South Platte River, then north along the eastern base of the Rockies to the Cache la Poudre near Laporte and Virginia Dale, and over to the Laramie Plains.