Bullwhacking, William Henry Jackson admitted, was not an easy job, a conclusion that in the end proved beneficial to American history.
"Bullwhacking is an art not to be learned in a week or a month," Jackson said after he tried driving oxen during a wagon train trek from Omaha, Nebraska, to Montana in 1866. "Only a cunning hand can make an 18-foot whip crack out like a rifle shot – or cut a notch in a lagging bull’s hind quarter.”
Getting up in the morning, corraling the oxen (which can weigh up to 3,000 pounds!), and putting the heavy wooden yokes around their thick necks so they could be hitched to wagons was not for everyone.
"After half an hour’s chasing through the mass after a wild fellow, you corner him and manage to fasten the bow by working very carefully - some other steer, having a grudge probably against the one you are gently urging up to the wagon wheel to fasten - gives him a punch in the ribs with his horns and sends him 'kiting' into the herd," the 23-year-old Jackson wrote some months after he left the wagon train.
Yoking a wild bull along the Oregon Trail/William Henry Jackson
That trek, however, propelled Jackson into a career that helped chronicle the West's geographic wonders. He went to Yellowstone country with the 1871 Hayden Expedition and returned with photos of the future national park's steaming, burping, spraying, and fuming wonders that, along with Thomas Moran's paintings, helped convince Congress to establish Yellowstone National Park. He served as the U.S. Geological and Geographical Survey's official photographer until 1878, and in 1873 captured the photo that many would forever associate with Jackson: the Mount of the Holy Cross, a mountain in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado that appeared to have a cross etched into it.
Jackson's introduction to the West came during that 1866 wagon train trek. It passed over Mitchell Pass, which is located today in Scotts Bluff National Monument in western Nebraska, and it was there that Jackson's artistic talents began to overtake his bullwhacking. He had been a fervent artist growing up in upstate New York not far from Lake Champlain, and while heading west he frequently captured landscapes. After leaving the wagon train in the Wyoming territory, Jackson soon found himself back in Omaha where he launched a photographic business.
An Easier Way West
Mitchell Pass in the mid-19th century became a key passageway for emigrants heading west. Before the military improved the road in 1850, possibly to make a more direct and easier path to Fort Laramie in the Wyoming Territory, many wagon trains headed a bit south, through Robidoux Pass. The improvements to Mitchell Pass, though, brought wagon trains closer to the Platte River and its life-saving water.
"This is the what we call the Oregon Trail pathway," Eric Grunwald, an interpreter at the national monument, told me on a late June day as we walked up Mitchell Pass. "It leads about a half-mile through these manmade ravines that were created, we think, by those soldiers who improved the road in 1850."
When Jackson came through the pass in 1866, he camped atop it. Exactly where the campsite was is a mystery today, though it's accepted to be within the monument's borders. Proof of his time there remains today in a painting of Mitchell Pass he created.
As we reached the approximate area of Jackson's camp atop the pass, the ranger pointed out that Jackson "went on the 1871 Yellowstone expedition, took some of the very first photographs of what became Yellowstone National Park, and, in fact, some people say that his photos were a catalyst for the creation of the park, because there was a lot of rumors about what lie in Yellowstone. I mean, people were talking about petrified birds singing petrified songs."
Jackson was on the 1871 Hayden Expedition to Yellowstone. Among the photos he returned with was this one of artist Thomas Moran on the hot springs at Mammoth/William Henry Jackson
"So people were like, 'alright, what's real, what's what's not real?' And so Jackson's photographs, he was able to photograph the geothermal features like the geysers, and the Mammoth hot springs, and so people realized, 'Wow, some of the stuff is real.' And in fact, some people thought the reality of this place is actually better than the rumors."
Chronicler Of The West
During his time in the West the photographer also visited the landscapes of today's Grand Teton, Mesa Verde, and Yosemite national parks, Hovenweep National Monument, and even the ranch in Kansas that today is the headquarters for Tallgrass Prairie National Preserve.
Jackson's career took him not only across the West, but, early in the 20th century, overseas. He spanned the days of westward migration by wagon train to international travel by airplane.
"He was just an amazing guy," Grunwald said. "I kind of think of him as, remember there was a beer commercial, the world's most interesting man. That was kind of him. I mean, this was a guy who had traveled the Oregon Trail as a young man and then by the time he had passed at the age of 99 [in 1942] he was flying around the world and photographing sites in Africa and Australia. So really an interesting guy."
Particularly amazing was how he perfected photography at a time when it mean using rather large, and fragile, glass slides. Images were not immediately available as they are on today's smart phones, so Jackson had to be an expert. And he needed to lug all that gear with him wherever he went.
"All the chemicals, the glass plates. He had something that was kind of revolutionary for its time, what he called the 'dark room on wheels," said Grunwald. "It was basically like a tent on wheels that he would use to develop his photographs. So really, really interesting. And, you know, some of the photographs that he took, he took the first photographs of Mount of the Holy Cross in Colorado, and the fact that he had to lug all that equipment up the mountain and use snow, snowmelt as water to develop his plates, is really amazing."
Pausing at the top of Mitchell Pass, the ranger noted the presence of Laramie Peak in Wyoming far off on the horizon.
William Henry Jackson later in life/NPS archives
"On some days, [the emigrants] would be able to catch their first glimpse of Laramie Peak, and so they knew that they were about to head into the mountains," said Grunwald. "So something to latch your eyes and your hopes on. Although, they probably had mixed feelings about seeing it because they knew once once they got into the mountains, their travels were about to get a bit more difficult. But in the same vein, it was pretty exciting because it meant that they were about a third of the way done with their journey."
As for Jackson, "he camped here one night, made sketches of the things that he saw, and he seemed to be really impressed by the scenery that he saw here in the North Platte Valley," said the ranger. "He wrote about Chimney Rock, he wrote about Courthouse and Jail Rock, and he wrote about Scotts Bluff here as well. He wouldn't have spent much time here just one night and then he would have been moving on further west."
While his stay might have been short in 1866, the photographer/artist's connection with Scotts Bluff remains, as the national monument is the repository for his original sketches, photographs, and artworks. Visit the park this summer and you can see some of his works in the visitor center, or you can virtually explore his works by visiting this site.
During your visit, you can walk a short trail up to the top of the pass and try to imagine how it looked to Jackson and other pioneers in the latter half of the 19th century. There's also a 1.6-mile road you can drive to the top of Scotts Bluff, passing through the only highway tunnels in Nebraska, or you can hike the Saddle Rock Trail that runs from the visitor center to the top of the bluff. At the top, you can meander along the half-mile North Overlook Trail with its views of the towns of Gering and Scotts Bluff and Chimney Rock off in the distance to the east, or stroll the quarter-mile South Overlook Trail and enjoy its views of Mitchell Pass as well as of Crown Rock, Dome Rock, Eagle Rock, and Saddle Rock.
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