The Eighth Wonder of the World

Flip a Nebraska state quarter and if it comes up tails, you'll see an image of the eighth wonder of the natural world. Although Chimney Rock – located along the Oregon Trail between Bridgeport and Gering isn't on any list of the wonders of the world – it was to many thousands of immigrants on the Oregon Trail, quite possibly the visual highlight of the trip.

It's quite likely that the vast majority of those who came west had only heard of the Seven Wonders of the World, and to their way of thinking, Chimney Rock was surely the eighth. By the 1840s, the already-famous landmark was included in travel guides and the sighting of the legendary earthen spire was eagerly anticipated. The popularity of the Chimney on the Great Platte River Road might well have rivaled the popularity of Yellowstone's Old Faithful or Niagara Falls in the northeast.

Along the California-Oregon trail in the North Platte Valley, there are at least eight significant landmarks: Ash Hollow, Court House Rock, Chimney Rock, Scott's Bluffs, Laramie Peak, Independence Rock, Devil's Gate and South Pass.

In the hundreds of diaries and journals that have been preserved from those early pioneers, Chimney Rock is recorded, commented on or described in rich detail in nearly every document. The magnificent Scotts Bluffs follow in a close second place with observations and comments recorded in about three of every four accounts.

The writings in these journals leave little doubt as to the visual and emotional impact of the Chimney on those early travelers:

• the most remarkable thing I ever saw – M. Crawford, 1842

• one of the most grand and splendid objects I ever saw – Shombre, 1849

• a great monument of nature – Burgess, 1866

Diary entries range from the mundane to the grandiose:

• old dilapidated chimney – Furguson, 1849

• chimney of a sugar refinery – Gray, 1849

• looming up like the Monument of some departed hero – Dunlap, 1864

• shot up like a spire in the heavens, its top gilded by the setting sun, looking like its crest was burnished with gold – Anderson, 1858

The first known record of this solitary spire in the Platte River Valley is found in the 1827 writings of Joshua Pilcher. He had been a hat maker in St. Louis and expanded his business to include the fur trade when beaver hats came into vogue.

In 1819, he became a partner with Manuel Lisa in the Missouri Fur Co. and, after Lisa's death in 1820, became the sole owner. In 1827, Joshua traveled up the Platte, with 45 trappers, to the Bear Lake rendezvous. His written record is the first printed reference to "the Chimney." The first known use of the term "Chimney Rock" comes from the 1842 journal of Charles Fremont's surveyor and cartographer, George Karl Ludwig Preuss.

One can only imagine the visual impact of this towering column of sandstone and clay as the westward bound immigrants followed the Platte River Valley. After weeks of travel from Council Bluffs the pioneers had traveled nearly 500 miles across a relatively flat and unimpressive landscape. The monotony of the trip was somewhat relieved by the heart stopping decent down Windlass Hill at Ash Hollow and, after a brief resting there, they broke camp and continued on.

It was another two-day journey along the Platte before someone may have spotted the faint image of the distant spire some 40 or 50 miles away. The clear, unpolluted air made the pillar appear much nearer than it actually was and after another two days of travel it seemed as though they were no closer to the landmark. Indeed, some recorded in their journals that the famous rock seemed to move farther away as they approached.

Another two days travel would find them directly north of what was then called Solitary Tower, also known as The Castle and later, Court House. Those more daring or adventurous would walk or ride the several miles south to explore and climb the giant sandstone structure. In the seeming endless distance the long anticipated landmark mocked their snail's-pace progress while even farther beyond stood the wall of ancient structures known as Scotts Bluffs, a blue-grey line on the far horizon.

Nearly a week after breaking camp at Ash Hollow, wagons would at last circle near the river and, there to the south, stood the long-anticipated grandeur of Chimney Rock. So close it seemed one could reach out and touch the towering column though it stood a full three miles away. One young man boasted that he could run the distance from camp to the pillar in 15 minutes. The boast was challenged, bets were made and the race begun. Forty-five minutes later the young man was still running.

In 1835, Presbyterian missionaries Marcus Whitman and Samuel Parker camped on the north bank of the Platte. At that point the river was shallow and about one mile wide. Whitman and Parker crossed the river on horseback and rode the three miles from the south bank to the Chimney.

Like many others, before and after, the Rev. Parker attempted an assessment of the dimensions of the landmark. He estimated the base of the cone, on which the "chimney" stood, to be about one-half mile in circumference and 150 feet in height. From the highest point of the cone, he guessed the height of the pillar to be 80 feet with a girth of 12 feet square.

There is no doubt that at one time the pillar was considerably taller than what we see today. Goldsborough Bruff's drawing of 1849 is considered to be an accurate portrayal of the chimney which is clearly at least a third taller than today.

David Cosad who used the geometric method of the Greeks in determining its height made the first "scientific" and most accurate measurement of the spire. "The way we ascertained the height ... Mr. A. was 5-feet, 9-inches high, and I measured his shadow and paced the shadow of the rock and made it 360 feet from the base to the top."

Before Cosad's scientific measurement the next most reliable estimate from prior years was made sometime around 1832. That estimate put the height at closer to 500 feet and would seem to substantiate the observations of mountain man and guide Jim Bridger who remarked that after 1849 the chimney appeared considerably shorter than before. Some claimed that the pinnacle was struck by lightning, which toppled a portion of the chimney. Nature's course of wind and rain is constantly eroding the relatively soft earth and there is evidence of significant crumbling in the heaps of debris around the base of the column. No doubt, over time the chimney will be reduced to a mere nubbin of its former grandeur, though it would appear that is some distance away in the far future. From the early days of immigrant trains it has been predicted that the instability and fragile makeup of the spire would result in its rapid demise:

• It is wasting away very fast and I dare say in a few years this old and weather beaten rock will entirely waste away – Castleman, 1849

• It is fast mouldering to ruins and if you don't look sharp, my friends, you will never see it – Wood, 1850

In 1864, it's said that U.S. soldiers used the spire to test the accuracy of their cannon and broke off about 30 feet from the top. In 1969, the chimney stood at 325 feet and is today recorded at almost 300 feet.

While the impressive earthen edifice acquired the name "Chimney Rock" around 1840, it would seem unusual that it had not been given a moniker long before that time. Located where it is, along the banks of the Platte and in the midst of traditional Sioux lands it is surprising that it does not figure prominently in the history of the Sioux. Although there are unconfirmed stories of a Sioux warrior who fell to his death after climbing to the top of the spire, the tale is not known among the Sioux as truth.

In 1830, fur trader Warren Ferris referred to the landmark as Nose Mountain. Gold-seeker Thomas Eastin dubbed it Tower Rock and Alfred Lambourne, Mormon pioneer and artist called it the Half-Way Post.

Of course, the Native Americans of the region would have had no knowledge of chimneys or other eastern structures and often named such landmarks according to their observations of nature. Early fur traders Zenas Leonard, Nathaniel Wyeth and William Anderson, in their writings, attempted to mask the native name, of the reproductive anatomy of a bull elk, in clever disguise by referring to it as Elk Peak, Elk Brick or simply "E.P. a solitary shaft."

Artist A.J. Miller titled one of his paintings with the French interpretation of the Indian name for Chimney Rock. The title of Millers painting is, "Returning from Hunting, near the Puine du Cerf."

M. Timothy Nolting is an award-winning Nebraska columnist and freelance writer. Contact Tim via e-mail at [email protected]