Chimney Rock. Source - NSHS. To see how important landmarks like Chimney Rock were to immigrants. click the button. You'll need the QuickTime Player.

Chimney Rock was one of the best known landmarks on the Oregon and Mormon Trails. Approximately 350, 000 pioneers passed by Chimney Rock. Fur trader Warren A. Ferris left the oldest known written description of Chimney Rock. On May 26, 1830, his party reached " ‘Nose Mountain,’ or as it is more commonly called, the ‘Chimney,’ a singular mound, which has the form of an inverted funnel." Joseph Hackney, a "Forty-Niner" on his way to the California gold fields, described Chimney Rock as "the most remarkable object" he had ever seen. Many nineteenth century travelers stopped to marvel at this "natural curiosity."

Hundreds of later travelers also were inspired to describe this impressive landmark. Chimney Rock, the first of many spectacular sights along the Oregon-California Trail, excited nineteenth century imaginations, as did no other natural wonder. Its reputation grew, no doubt because it came early in the journey and after many miles of flat plains.

Many passersby felt compelled to carve their names on chimney Rock, though few inscriptions lasted long. Those travelers who recorded their experiences on the trail through letters, diaries, and drawings left a far more permanent and significant legacy to our nation's history.

"I engraved my name and the name of my wife. There were several Ladies and Gentlemen on the rock with me; and after I had completed my name I looked to my left and there stood a young lady who had cut foot and handholes in the soft rock busily engaged in scribing her name about 2 feet higher than my own."
    — James W. Evans, 1850.

The natural forces of deposition and erosion formed Chimney Rock and stands as stark evidence of awesome, but slow forces that shape the earth. Many observers, like Israel F. Hale in 1849, predicted that the rock would fall.

"Even the names that were written yesterday [in the rock at the base] were nearly obliterated by the storm last night ... If I mistake not, the famous Chimney Rock before many years will be among the things that were known in history ... I am very sure it cannot stand many years before large flakes will slide to the ground, if all does not come down in a general crash."

Socttsbluff National Monument. Source - NSHS.

Wind and water also shaped Courthouse Rock and Scott’s Bluff, companion geological formations further west along the North Platte Valley. You can image the surprise of the Oregon Trail travelers when they came upon a high bluff in the middle of the Great Plains. They well may have wondered if it were a mirage that was induced from their long journey through the "Great American Desert." Scott's Bluff was name for Hiram Scott, a fur trapper, who died there in 1823. He was injured or became ill near the bluff, and when he was unable to travel, his partners abandoned him.

Scott's Bluff is a range of high, rugged, broken hills along the banks of the North Platte River. Oregon Trail travelers had to make a long detour around the south side of the bluff. By 1851 a road was made through a gap in the bluff called Mitchell Pass. Today a road leads from the museum to the top of the bluff.

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