Overland Stage Trail ruts as seen from Signature Rock, northwest of Fort Collins, Colorado.
"...we [ox train] made a good days travel and a good way through the gaps in the hills..we passed a wagon trail ...Evans trail made last year [1849]..."June 20 & 21, 1850 Diary.
After fourteen years of emigrant use over the 1849 Evans Cherokee Trace, Ben Holliday's Overland Stage Company received permission from the Postal Department [July 8, 1862] to move his stage route from the Oregon/South Pass onto the Cherokee Trail. It became called the Cherokee/Overland Trail.
