Central Overland Trail

The Central Overland Route (also known as the "Central Overland Trail", "Central Route", "Simpson's Route", or the "Egan Trail") was a transportation route from Salt Lake City, Utah south of the Great Salt Lake through the mountains of central Nevada to Carson City, Nevada. For a decade after 1859, until the first Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, it served a vital role in the transport of emigrants, mail, freight, and passengers between California, Nevada, and Utah.

The route was initially scouted in 1855 by Howard Egan, and used by him to drive livestock between Salt Lake City and California. The trail Egan used led straight through the high mountain ranges that most earlier explorers had worked so hard to avoid. Egan discovered that a series of mountain passes and mountain springs were aligned to allow an almost direct path across the middle of Utah and Nevada. The Schell Creek Range could be crossed at Schellbourne Pass, the Cherry Creek Range at Egan Canyon, the Ruby Mountains at Overland Pass, the Diamond Mountains at another Overland Pass, the Toiyabe Range at Emigrant Pass, and the Desatoya Mountains at Basque Summit (all of these place names came later). Although many smaller ranges and two large deserts also had to be traversed, the reduction in length over the 'standard' California Trail route along the Humboldt River by about 280 miles (450 km) made this route about two weeks faster for emigrants getting to (or from) California. After it was developed many California emigrants and returning emigrants used this route.

In 1858, hearing of Egan's Trail, the U.S. Army sent an expedition led by Captain James H. Simpson to survey it for a military road to get supplies to the Army's Camp Floyd in Utah. Simpson came back with a surveyed route that was about 280 miles (450 km) shorter than the 'standard' California Trail route along the Humboldt River. The Army then improved the trail and springs for use by wagons and stagecoaches in 1859 and 1860. When the approaching American Civil War closed the heavily subsidized Butterfield Overland Mail south western route to California along the Gila River, George Chorpenning immediately realized the value of this more direct route, and shifted his existing mail and passenger line from the "Northern Humboldt Route" along the Humboldt River. In 1861 John Butterfield, who since 1858 had been using the Butterfield Overland Mail route through the deserts of the American Southwest, also switched to the Central Route to avoid possible hostilities during the American Civil War. The various stage lines, by traveling day and night and changing their teams at about 10 miles (16 km) to 20 miles (32 km) intervals, could get light freight, passengers, and mail to or from Missouri River towns to California in about 25–28 days. Gold and Silver mined in California and Nevada was often part of the cargo going east as the Civil War consumed vast sums of money. Nearly all stage lines were heavily subsidized to carry the mail. After the American Civil War, Wells Fargo & Co. absorbed the Butterfield stage lines and ran stage coaches and freight wagons along the Central Route as well as developing the first agriculture in the Ruby Valley in Nevada to help support their livestock.

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