(Not Really) Roughing it on the Mark Twain Trail
From Hannibal, Missouri, to San Francisco, California
Categories: Renegade Roads
By: Johnny D. Boggs 11/01/2007
A Man Named Slade
From here, it’s on to Greeley, Loveland, Fort Collins and up to Laramie, stopping, of course, at Virginia Dale just before entering Wyoming. Anyone who has read Roughing It has to pay tribute to a man “feared a great deal more than the Almighty.”
This is Jack Slade country—maybe even more so than Julesburg, where Twain first ran into the legend—“the most bloody, the most dangerous and the most valuable citizen ... of the mountains.”
Slade, one of the Overland’s division agents, ran this stagecoach station, established in 1862, naming it after his “wife,” according to legend. Not much of the settlement remains, but the log station is still standing, with tours available by appointment.
From Laramie, you can follow the old Overland Trail—Sweetwater Creek, Independence Rock, Devil’s Gate, Devil’s Gap and South Pass City. Or you can be lazy and scoot along I-80 to Salt Lake City, Utah, and wind across Nevada to Virginia City—the most important stop (next to Hannibal) on any Mark Twain trail.
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