Camp Conner

Excitement and anxiety mounted as emigrants prepared to launch their ox-drawn prairie schooners from St. Joseph and Independence, Missouri - bustling river ports at the edge of the frontier in the 1840s. To them, the great, gray ribbon of the Missouri was the western shore of civilized society. Once their wagons rolled off the ferry onto the Kansas prairie, emigrants embarked into unfamiliar country - trespassers on Indian lands and outside the protection of the government. On the trail, there were no markets, no hospitals, no laws and no second chances. From there until they reached trail's end, some 2,000 miles later, the pioneer emigrants were on their own.

Thieves, murderers, problems with Indians, and starvation often plagued emigrants and overland carriers through the early 1860s. Numerous outcries and scathing newspaper articles from western settlements led the federal government to establish a series of military camps and fortifications that would aid and protect the hundreds of thousands of emigrants and keep the mail service on its daily course between the east and west coasts.

Already a popular emigrant camp, the military chose to establish one of these fortifications on the bluff above the north bank of the Bear River. Colonel Patrick E. Conner, accompanied by 300 soldiers arrived in May of 1863. Two and a
half years later, Soda Springs was able to care for itself and to provide protection and supplies for Oregon Trail emigrants as well. Although no physical evidence of Camp Conner remains today and historians can only speculate as to its original location, many of the soldiers settled in the area after separation.

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Show me all markers in:  Soda Springs, ID  |  Caribou County  |  83276  |  Idaho  |  United States of America

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