all weekend long, american history tv is joining our charter cable partners to showcase the history of casper, wyoming. to learn more about the cities on our 2014 tour, visit c-span.org/localcontent. we continue now with our look at the history of casper. this is american history tv on c-span3. >> we are here at the national historic trail interpret ircenter. the trail center addresses the oregon trail, the mormon trail, california trail, and the pony express trail. it didn't matter why you were going west. it didn't matter which trail you were on. if you were going west, you had to come through casper, wyoming, because south pass is the only pass in the rocky mountains that allows a wagon to be able to transfer. consequently, all the trails come through casper, wyoming. these early explorers, basically, you see the outline of the state of wyoming, this square basically shows south

pass, whether you're going through the great salt lake, whether you're going to the oregon territory for free land, or whether you're going to california for gold. this represents some of the early explorers. the best-known explorer in wyoming is none other than jim bridger. he wasn't that well traveled, but he did a great amount of documentation in his diary. he was the first white man, we believe, to have discovered the great salt lake. it's his diaries that the mormons will later follow to the great salt lake. when you compare jim bridger to another very famous explorer, john c. free mount, when you compare his travels with some of the other explorers, you can see how some were very well traveled and some just stuck to certain areas. but they're all important to the story of the trails west and why people came west, and these diaries that will be

followed basically become the road maps for all of these trails down the way. at the oregon trail gallery, you will experience crossing the great flat river. >> no matter what happens, just sit still! >> we have just crossed the river in between fort laramie and red butte here at casper. we will be traveling on, trying to get to independence rock by the fourth of july, hence the name independence rock. and again, we must travel through south pass with those wagons in order to successfully transfer to rocky mount. oregon trail starts at about 1840, with just a few travelers. and by 1870, 100,000 travelers have been on the oregon trail. if you can only imagine your father coming home and saying, i've decided we're going west to oregon, please go upstairs,

pack all of your provisions that you can take in one suitcase, this is an interactive exhibit that our children will use. they have to decide what they're going to take on the trail and what they will leave behind. not everything fits, so they have to make a decision as to what will fit in the trunk and what will not fit and what they leaf behind. dad will say tell all your friends, all your relatives goodbye. we're leaving at sun up in the morning, and we will not be back. you'll probably never see them again. and oh, by the way, the trail is 2,000 miles long and we'll be walking the whole distance. we've now moved on to the mormon gallery. this tells the story of a mormon migration who left illinois and traveled to the great salt lake.

this is an example of a roadometer, which is an accurate measurement of the distance traveled by the rotation of the wheel prior to the mormon invention, a small child would be assigned to walk next to the wheel with a handkerchief tied next to the wheel, and they would have to count the revolutions as they watched the wheel make one revolution, and that was no small task. in the journey to the great salt lake, this wagon would revolutions, 60 so the roadometer was a much, much welcome invention. large portion of the mormon population is leaving in illinois, and they're basically labeled criminals and told to get out of town overnight, starting a large, large migration in a short amount of time. the mormon trail basically begins in 1846 and on up through the 1870's until salt

lake city becomes the great mormon city that it is today. and they're basically following the journal diaries and the maps created by jim bridger. they will stop along the way several places, thinking that they have found the ideal place just east of casper here. they established a camp and thought that that was going to be where they would end up, but they couldn't find enough water and then continued on to the great salt lake. a great many of the mormons could not afford a wagon and a team. consequently, the church encouraged mormons to travel to their new promised land, which was the salt lake, and the church would lone a hand cart to a family, and then when the family got to the salt lake and got re-established, they would pay back the church for the hand cart, which would then be used to further others coming down the trail. this wagon cart had to be

pulled at a particular speed in order to make 15 miles a day. if you went too slow, you would run out of groceries and perish, because there's no grocery stores along the trail. you had to pick up the pace so that you got into the yellow. at this steady walking pace, you could make 15 miles a day, which was crucial to you getting to where you needed to be before the winter storms. f you wind too fast, you would simply die of exhaustion. the meager rations that you are carrying will not replace the energy that you're expending, and you will die of exhaustion n the trail. chronologically, we have now moved to the california trails. california trails, of course, tells the story of the gold rush to california. now, the newspapers exaggerated the story of gold at sutters

creek, showing pictures such as this, where you could pick up a five-pound rock of solid gold, put it in your pocket, and live happily ever after. those stories existed, but they were few and far between. the majority of the miners that went to california, in fact, died broke. the real success story are the people who mined the miners, and that was the people who were selling them picks and shovels and wheelbarrows and clothing and supplies, which was very, very expensive at the time. there was also stories of scams, where you could get to california in a real hurry, using such things as air balloon and wind wagons, which really didn't exist, but you could buy a ticket to get to california then you would show up on the appointed time to catch the air ship or the wind wagon, and they, of course, did not exist, and you'd be holding a worthless ticket. now, during the course of the travels down the trail, a lot of times your animals, if you were traveling on the trail,

your animals would start to wear out, and you would lighten the load. you'd be throwing heavy things and stoves ilss and extra wheels just to spare the animals the misery of pulling this wagon loaded down. we've now moved on to the pony express trail. in addition to the pony express delivering mail, which we'll talk about in a moment, there were stage lines operated by the pony express companies, wells fargo and russell majors and what else. now, the wagon that you see is called the stage coach, and it's basically pulled by multiple teams over the same trail day after day, resulting in a lot of dust being picked up. that dust would roll into the wagon. there were large leather curtains above each of the windows to keep the dust out. but if you chose to roll the curtains down and keep the dust out, you would raise the temperature in the coach by 20 degrees. the coach would be occupied by

nine occupants. it seems rather small, but the average man in the time period stood about 5'6" and weighed about stow pounds. the average woman of the time period stands 5'4" and weighs about 90 pounds, hence there would be enough room. the very last seat actually folds up in the door, so when you pull the door shut, the seat folds down, giving the ninth passenger his seat. you could only imagine the people that you might be traveling with. a man smoking a big, old black cigar, a woman wearing too much perfume, children being sea-sick and throwing up in the coach, all those types of smells as you bounced across the prairie with a great amount of dust rolling into those windows on a hot day. this is the other portion of the pony express trail. this is, of course, the main purpose of the pony express trail, and that was the delivery of mail from st. joseph, missouri, to sacramento, california. we oftentimes get the wrong impression from television and movies that a rider rode the

entire distance, which is not true. as you see on the map, there are lots of little stops and starts. there were approximately 25 ome stations and 165 swing stations. a swing station is where a rider would simply change his tired horse for a fresh horse and gallon on to the next swing station, again, getting a fresh horse. he would eventually reach a home station. a home station is where he would spend the evening, and then the next morning he would catch the mail coming from the opposite direction, and he would head back to his other home station. so one ride we're just do this loop. the next rider would do this loop, and it was until the mail was delivered, hopefully from st. joseph, missouri, to sacramento accident california, in 10 days. pony express lasted only a little over a year, and that was due to economic reasons. it was very expensive to

operate the pony express. it was a dangerous job. this is an advertisement from the st. joseph newspaper. pony express riders young, skinny, wire are you fellows, not over 18, must expert riders, willing to risk death daily, wages $25 a week, which is a very large sum of money for the time period, but, of course, risking death daily is kind of the key to this type of occupation. the impact of the telegraph, of course, is -- has spelled the death knell for the pony express. the telegraph comes across, and oftentimes lines were spread out just across the brush because there were very few trees even to this day across much of the expanse of the plains. with the telegraph laid out just basically across the prairie on the brush to keep it up off the ground, animals would run through it. the native americans soon learned that the talking wire meant more white people coming down the prairie. they would oftentimes snip

pieces of a line out using it for owner men station purposes on their weapons, jewelry, etc. so the telegraph needed to be repaired almost daily. the story of the trail ends with, of course, the continental railroad bringing mass populations very, very rapidly to the western united states. it also begins a new chapter with the modern highways that we now have today. i hope visitors take away from the interpretive center here an appreciation of the people that settled the american west. they were not large people. they were just tough people with a mindset that there was a better life ahead of them, and they set out with a strong determination and with a strong determination you can accomplish almost anything. >> >> throughout the weekend, american history tv is featuring

casper, wyoming. our team traveled there to learn about its rich history. learn more about casper and other stops at www.c-span.org /localcontent. you are watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend on c-span3. >> 40 years ago, richard nixon's presidency ended and gerald ford's began. vice president ford was sworn into the highest office at noon that day. shortly after president nixon departed the white house for civilian life. he announced his resignation the night before. next, free speech is the new president delivered in his first month in office. we will see you swearing in ceremony, address to joint session of congress, and the white house press conference. 19 74,rn to august 9,