Two "Walker Pass"
by REBrammer
Special thanks to G. Andrew Miller & Bill Horst
Walker Pass on SR 178 by Lake Isabella in the southern Sierra Nevada is “Not” Joseph R. Walkers pass of 1834 or 1843.
John C. Fremont while performing a military survey in 1845 marked it as “Walker Pass”.
In
reality, Captain Walker had only first used this pass in 1844 while leaving
California.
Walker's Pass as laid down on the map is incorrect.
It should be North-east of Keyesville, instead of [from]South-west.
In a newspaper article published on March 17, 1860, John
Shannon [editor] of the Visalia Weekly Delta stated:
OFF FOR MONO
-- During the past week a goodly number of our citizens have left for Mono
Lake. On Monday last Mr. Hicks, of the firm of Johnson & Hicks, and Mr. Biggs,
of Woodville, with a few companions, left, and on Wednesday morning the
Messrs. Smiths, Mr. Richard Billups, Mr. G. N. Talbert, and some half dozen
others left -- There are still others who intend starting soon, with the
intention of overtaking the above named companies. Each company have one or
two wagons, and intend going by way of Keyesville and the South Fork of the
Kern river.
On Wednesday, Colonel Walker and company, consisting of
thirteen men, also left Visalia. They procured their outfit here. The intention
of Col. Walker is to leave the road a short distance south of Tule river and
cross the heads of the Southern branches of that river, striking Kern river
above the caņon about fifty miles from Keyesville, opposite Owens Lake.
The Col. passed through this route the first time in the fall of 1834,
and again on the first of March, 1835, and has crossed through several times
since. He states that with very little labor and expense a good wagon road may
be made to Kern river, and on the other side of Kern river there is no
difficulty whatever in reaching Owen’s Lake.
By this route some one hundred or one hundred and fifty
miles of travel is saved. The object of Col. Walker and party is to prospect
this region of country, both for gold and silver. He thinks from former
observations, that he can find a continuation of the famed Washoe Lead, and is
very certain that gold abounds in that region South of Mono Lake.
Col. Walker is near seventy [61] years of age, and has
spent the greater portion of his life in trading, trapping, and traveling with
and among the Western Indians, and is well conversant with the country East of
the Sierra Nevada Mountains. We may reasonably anticipate some rich and
important discoveries from this party.
To all of them we wish a pleasant and prosperous trip,
and hope that their expectations may be more than realized.
Walker's
Original Pass (Haiwee
Pass) of 1834 and 1843
The recent discovery of gold, silver and other ores in the region of Mono Lake has created quite a furor in the way of wagon road enterprises throughout the state. This is right and commendable and worthy of emulation by the good citzens of our valley.
THE VISALIA WEEKLY DELTA . . .SATURDAY . . . MARCH 31,
1860
MONO LAKE
The recent discovery of gold, silver, and other ores in
the region of Mono Lake has created quite a furor in the way of wagon road
enterprises throughout the state. This is right, and commendable, and worthy
of emulation by the good citizens of our valley.
Some weeks since we called the attention of the public to
the route of Colonel Walker, known as “Walkers Pass,” leaving the overland
road a short distance south of Tule River, thence crossing the heads of the
southern branches of that river, striking Kern River above the Caņon about
fifty miles from Keyesville, opposite Owens’ Lake.
Col. Walker informs us that there is only one point that
will need much labor, and that he believes can be avoided entirely, thereby
making this route accessible at all seasons of the year with wagons and
heavily laden teams. The importance of this news is magnified incomparably
when we come to consider the fact that this valley must have an outlet through
which it can send its surplus produce, cattle, hogs, and sheep, and that by
means of this new road it will be enabled to cope with all the other portions
of our State in the sale of her stock and produce, that, will shortly
literally flood the land. -- The immense immigration here must find a means of
sustenance, and out of the soil -- and in order to obtain the manufactured
necessaries of life, they will be obliged to sell the result of their labor to
a community that either has gold or these manufactured articles to exchange
for it -- Which will the Monoians have? We answer gold, if any thing. How all
important it is, that the citizens of this valley should immediately set
themselves to work in surveying out and working this new route through, in
order that the shortest communication from San Francisco, the great commercial
emporium of the West, to the illimitable fields of industry that will burst
open as the death knell of the winter of 1860 is resounded over our land, may
be known -- and the people of those new scenes of labor, supplied with the
sustenance of life on the most reasonable basis.
Walker’s Pass as laid down on the map is incorrect. It
should be North-east of Keyesville, instead of [from the] South-west.
Walker's original pass of 1834 was also the pass of 1843 when he guided the Joseph B. Chiles wagon party to California. This is the pass that Edward Kern was referring to and the area south of Owens Lake where Walker left the wagons and mill irons. Joe Walker may be credited with bringing wagons to California but the wagons never made it over the mountains.
December 21st, 1845 as Joe Walker and Ed Kern were riding passed Owens Lake, Kern noted the following:
We passed today (Walker's) Child's cache, where, on account of his animals failing, he was obliged to bury the contents of his wagons, among which was a complete set of mill irons. Later, while camped on the Kern River, Ed Kern added this note: On his (Walker's) return trip he left the country by a more southern pass in the Sierra, which Captain fremont calls Walker's pass. Walker's old pass was to the northward of this by what is now called Kern River.
Walker's return trip may have been in February of 1844 when he applies for local passports for himself and three of Chiles men = Lewis Anderson, Thomas Cowrie and Dawson.
It would appear that Captain Walker discovered "New Walker Pass" in February of 1844.
Walker's
"Original" Pass of 1834 or Haiwee Pass [See map below]
Joe Walker...the real Captain America