Even after the discovery of South Pass in 1824, it was years before the route was used extensively. Fur trapper/trader William Sublette brought a small caravan of wagons to South Pass in 1828. While his party did not take wagons over the pass, they demonstrated the feasibility of using them.
Captain Benjamin Bonneville took the first wagons over South Pass in 1832. But it was U.S. Government explorer, Lt. John Charles Fremont, who was responsible for publicizing the South Pass route. Scattered references to an easy passage over the Rockies had appeared in newspapers for a decade, but in 1842 Fremont created enthusiasm for South Pass by explaining that a traveler could go through it without any "toilsome ascents".
As knowledge of South Pass became widespread, a great western migration commenced. Thousands of Mormons, and future Oregonians and Californians, would cut a wide swath along the route in the next twenty years.
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