At the end of the Utah War in June 1858, General Albert S. Johnston selected Cedar Valley to establish a military post for some twenty-four hundred officers and men of the US Army’s Utah Expedition. The location west of Utah Lake at present Fairfield, Utah, met the immediate needs of his command for grass for its animals and remoteness from population centers to avoid clashes between his soldiers and settlers of the territory ruled by Brigham Young.

At the same time, Johnston knew that the location for his new post, named Camp Floyd, was less than ideal when it came...

During the summer of 1859, Captain James Simpson of the US Army’s Corps of Topographical Engineers led an expedition of exploration from Camp Floyd to Genoa. Camp Floyd was an army post in Cedar Valley, about forty miles southwest of Great Salt Lake City. Genoa was a small settlement located at the eastern foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The mission of the expedition was to find a practical route for wagons through the central part of Utah and Nevada. If such a route could be found, it was believed that it would shorten the distance between Salt Lake City...

James Hervey Simpson was a career army officer, and no novice when it came to traveling into unmapped territory to hunt for places where wagon roads could be established. Born in New Jersey in 1813, he was admitted to the US Military Academy at the age of fifteen. After graduating from West Point in 1832, his duty stations took him to Maine, Virginia, South Carolina, and Florida, where he was involved in action during the Seminole uprisings.¹ When the Army established its Corps of Topographical Engineers in 1838, he was among the first officers assigned to this new unit. Having...

Leaving the campsite on Faust Creek, the party moved southwest, heading upstream along the east bank of the stream. After traveling about a mile, they forded the small stream near where it now crosses under Utah State Route 36. Heading west from the ford, the expedition began crossing a flat, meadowlike area. After another half mile, they passed the spot where Simpson and his smaller force had camped the previous October 27, when they were returning from the reconnaissance trip. At this location, the Chorpenning employees had established a mail station. At the present time, the area to the west...

Simpson clearly made an error when he said they traveled from Pleasant Valley to “Camp No. 8.” They were actually leaving Camp Number 8, which was in Pleasant Valley, and heading for Camp Number 9. The summit that they crossed at 8.5 miles is known as Cedar Pass, and is located on the ridge between South Mountain and Kern Mountain. Today two roads cross this pass. One is a well-traveled and well-maintained dirt road that travels along the eastern side of a knoll that lies in the middle of the pass area. The second road is a very seldom used,...

The expedition’s direction of travel this day illustrates how the need for water influenced Simpson’s decisions about the route. Apparently unaware that there was a good source of water to their southwest, they headed almost due south toward a place where the guide knew they would find a running stream. This was one of a few instances in which Simpson later decided that they had gone the wrong way. A glance at the map will show that if they had traveled southwest from the camp on Robert’s Creek, they could have gone directly to the Dry Creek area, which is...

By noting that they passed through the Middlegate gap after leaving camp, Simpson makes it clear that the campsite had been on the east side of the ridge. Heading west from the campsite, US 50 follows a straight line that takes it about a quarter of a mile north of the old Middlegate Overland Stage Station, the site of which is now occupied by a restaurant and motel. The expedition’s camp had been on the south bank of the creek, and there seems to be no good reason for them to have crossed it before reaching the site of Middlegate...

Simpson indicated that they returned to Carson City by following their earlier route, but does not specifically state whether or not they returned to the exact spot that they had used for a campsite two weeks earlier. However, since the distance was the same for both trips, it can probably be assumed that they did camp at the same place, which would mean that Camps 37-W and 2-E were both near the little park at the intersection of Carson and Stewart streets.

When the expedition left Genoa, it was accompanied by an additional passenger. While in San Francisco, Simpson had...

Although Simpson reported that they started out by heading somewhat north of east, they probably traveled almost due east at first. This would have had them coming to their outbound route at about three and a half miles. Today there is no evidence of a trail for the first part of this route, but at about a mile from camp, their route may have joined a faint trail that can be seen on aerial photos of this area. This route would have crossed Old Overland Road, which is heading southeast at this point but which soon turns to the northeast....

As mentioned previously, Simpson had first heard about this wagon road just two months earlier, when the expedition was still westbound, and was camped in the northern end of Butte Valley. Lot Huntington, the Chorpenning agent, told him that the trail had been made by a group of emigrants from the town of Fillmore, who were on their way to California.² At that time, Simpson may have been somewhat skeptical about its actual existence, but now he was seeing it for himself. He was very interested in the origin of this road, and he wanted to know what it was...

Upon leaving camp that morning, the expedition followed its earlier track back to the Mormon road, then turned to the left and began to follow it down the southeast slope of Swasey Mountain. Simpson’s description makes it sound as though they left the road almost immediately after getting onto it, but it is more likely that they stayed on it for about two miles before taking the shortcut. When Simpson said they were “winding in the canyon to the left,” he seems to have meant that they took a route that went somewhere to the east of the Mormon road....

Previous to setting out that morning, Private Kennedy, at about 9:00 o’clock returned to the camp and reported that the group he had been with had not been able to find the spring they were looking for until after it had gotten light. When they finally found it, they discovered that it was just a small seep, and they would have to do some digging before the animals would be able to get any water from it. The problem was, they did not have anything to dig with. Simpson immediately instructed Sergeant Miller to take some shovels to the spring...

Simpson arrived back at Camp Floyd on the evening of August 3, 1859. The following day General Johnston issued a set of orders that included the following:

Captain Simpson will dispatch a subaltern of his party over the last 100 miles of his new route, with minute instructions to straighten the portion west of Rush Valley, and establish guide-marks upon it. A detail of one non-commissioned officer and ten dragoons, rationed for twelve days, will escort this officer. This detachment will be immediately prepared, and held ready to march on the arrival of the surveying party.

The depot quartermaster will...