Text of the marker:
Beginning in 1849, there plodded up the southern slope of Mount Oread a vast emigration bound for the golden land of California. One branch of the great California and Oregon thus passed over the very ground now part of the University Campus and many a campfire gleamed on summer nights from the crest where now throngs of students tread.
Plaque by Dr. Howard R. Driggs, President, American Pioneer Trails Association setting by Class of 1916.
From the Kansas University Memorial webpage:
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"The bronze medallion of this marker is 16.5 inches in diameter and bears the image of a conestoga wagon pulled by oxen and guided by a pioneer. The work of sculptors J.E. and L.G. Fraser, it is mounted on a limestone plinth about 4 feet tall and nearly 6 feet long. The whole is surrounded by a low ovoid stone wall; plantings and a flagpole complete the marker.
It was presented by the American Pioneer Trails Association to commemorate one of the sites on the ridge of Mount Oread that the California-Oregon Trail crossed in the 1840s and 1850s. The marker, dedicated April 17, 1954, was a gift of Howard and Margaret Brazier Driggs; he was president of the trail association, and she was a 1930 alumna. A plaque that was a gift of the Class of 1916 bears a quote from Across the Years on Mount Oread, a 1941 history by Robert Taft, a longtime KU chemistry professor."
Information on the Oregon Trail from Wikipedia:
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"The Oregon Trail is a 2,000-mile (3,200 km) historic east-west large wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Idaho and Oregon.
The Oregon Trail was laid by fur trappers and traders from about 1811 to 1840 and were only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared further and further west, eventually reaching all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. What came to be called the Oregon Trail was complete, even as improved roads, "cutouts", ferries and bridges made the trip faster and safer almost every year. From various "jumping off points" in Missouri, Iowa or Nebraska Territory, the routes converged along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory and led to rich farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.
From the early to mid-1830s and particularly through the epoch years 1846–1869 the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, ranchers, farmers, miners, and businessmen and their families. The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Bozeman Trail (from 1863), and Mormon Trail (from 1847) which used some of the same eastern trails before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer. Today, modern highways such as Interstate 80 follow the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to service the Oregon Trail."
Information on the California Trail from Wikipedia:
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"The California Trail was an emigrant trail of about 2,000 miles (3,200 km) across the western half of the North American continent from Missouri River towns to what is now the state of California. After it was established, the first half of the California Trail followed the same corridor of networked river valley trails as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail, namely the valleys of the Platte, North Platte and Sweetwater Rivers to Wyoming. In the present states of Wyoming, Idaho and Utah the California and Oregon trail split into several different trails or cutoffs.
By 1847, two former fur trading frontier forts marked trailheads for major alternative routes in Utah and Wyoming to Northern California. The first was Jim Bridger's Fort Bridger (est. 1842) in present-day Wyoming on the Green River where the Mormon Trail turned southwest over the Wasatch Mountains to the newly established Salt Lake City, Utah. From Salt Lake the Salt Lake Cutoff (est. 1848) went north and west of the Great Salt Lake and rejoined the California Trail in the City of Rocks in present-day Idaho. The main Oregon and California Trails crossed the Green River on several different ferries and trails (cutoffs) that led to or bypassed Fort Bridger and then crossed over a range of hills to the Great Basin drainage of the Bear River (Utah). Just past present-day Soda Springs, Idaho both trails initially turned northwest following the Portneuf River (Idaho) valley to the British Hudson's Bay Company's Fort Hall (est. 1836) on the Snake River in present-day Idaho. From Fort Hall the Oregon and California trails went about 50 miles (80 km) southwest along the Snake River valley to another "parting of the ways" trail junction at the junction of the Raft and Snake river. The California Trail from the junction followed the Raft River to the City of Rocks in Idaho near the present Nevada-Idaho-Utah tripoint. The Salt Lake and Fort Hall routes were about the same length—about 190 miles (310 km). From the City of Rocks the trail went into the present state of Utah following the South Fork of the Junction Creek. From there the trail followed along a series of small streams like Thousand Springs Creek in the present state of Nevada till they got to near present day Wells, Nevada where they met the Humboldt River. By following the crooked, meandering Humboldt River valley west across the arid Great Basin, emigrants were able to get the water, grass, and wood needed by all travelers and their teams. The water turned increasingly alkaline as they progressed down the Humboldt, there were almost no trees so "firewood" usually consisted of broken brush and the grass was sparse and dried out—few liked the Humboldt River valley passage."