In the early 19^th century, various fur trapping companies set up posts along the front range of the Rocky Mountains in what is now Colorado: Bent and St. Vrain (Fort Lookout), Sublette and Vasquez, Fort Jackson, and Fort Lupton. These “forts” were built in the 1830s within 10 miles of the South Platte River” forming a chain connecting the fur traders.

Trappers based at these forts and working for larger companies went out into the wilderness to trap beaver and buffalo or to trade with the various native tribes living in the area including the Arapahoe, Cheyenne, and occasionally the Crows, Pawnees, Shoshones and Blackfeet. Many of the pelts collected by the trappers, either through trapping or trade, would be collected or sent back east for sale.

It is difficult to track the movements of the trappers as there is little written evidence of their travels, but a few were known to have traveled along the South Platte River and likely through the Fort Morgan area.

Artist on the Plains

Even during the height of the Indian Wars, emigrants along the South Platte River Road sometimes traveled hundreds of miles without having problems with the natives. The western artist Charles Stewart Stobie traveled along the South Platte River trail in the summer of 1865, though he must have passed the burnt out remnants of stage stations, he wrote instead about leisurely pursuits than the destruction along the trail. The following excerpt from Stobie’s journal begins just as his party left Julesburg:

Life on the Trail

The diaries written by the female travelers along the South Platte River Road in the 1860s show a different perspective on both the Indians and life on the trail. Helen E. Clark and seven others left Plano, Illinois in April following her father and brother who had made the trip to Denver a year earlier taking the Santa Fé or Southern route. Helen mentions passing O Follers [O’Fallen] Bluffs on June 2nd and Fremont’s Orchard on June 14th. The following excerpt from her diary begins between these two landmarks likely around the area of Sterling: