The Kansas Herald Of Freedom

The Central Route the Best.

Of the various routes to Pike's Peak and the gold region unanimously, we believe it is now very generally conceded that the most direct, and the best, on many accounts, is by way of the Smoky Hill Fork.

G. N. Woodward writes from the gold region, dating his letter "South Platte Nov. 19th, '58," and directed to Van Horn & Abeel, of the Kansas City Journal, in which he says:

"The best route for emigrants is to Fort Riley, thence up the Smoky Hill Fork, which rises within 30 miles of the base of Pike's Peak. A road will be laid out in the spring from the South Platte to the source of the Smoky Hill Fork."

Julian R. Fitch, a Government Surveyor who has just returned from a western expedition on the route of Pike's Peak, writing to the Leavenworth Journal, expresses a decided preference for the Smoky Hill route. He gives various reasons why he prefers that route, and closes with the following:--

"At Junction City the traveler can procure anything he may have forgotten when leaving the river. Keeping straight up the bottom, on the North side of Smoky Hill, thirty-four miles, you come to the mouth of Solomon's Fork. This you follow, nearly due West, for fifteen or twenty miles, and at or near the second standard parallel, which is just six miles South of Leavenworth, you come to a good stone crossing. And a gentleman by the name of Bruce is now engaged in putting in a good ferry, to be used in case of high water. Having crossed the Solomon, you take the high divide, North of the Smoky Hill, and keep a nearly West course until you come to the Saline, the last branch of any size to be crossed, where they will find no difficulty in crossing. That passed, the road is good to the "gold regions."

The Junction City Sentinel, a paper published at the junction of the Republican and Smoky Hill Forks of the Kansas river, some sixteen miles West of Fort Riley, says:--

"Grass is said to be a month earlier on this than any other route, and it is reasonably accounted for by scientific explorers from the gypsum formation (a great fertilizer discovered along the Smoky Hill Fork. Wood and water (the two greatest necessaries on the plains are found in abundance. The route is two hundred miles shorter than any other route from either Kansas City or Leavenworth. For the truth of this last assertion we refer the incredulous to any map of the country, a glance at which is sufficient to convince an unprejudiced mind. If you outfit at the above first named city, you follow the road on the South side of the river to this place; here you cross, and continue up on the North side of the Smoky Hill to its head waters, this being a due West course, and direct to the mines; but should you start from Leavenworth City, you have a splendid road (Col. Cook, U. S. A., calls it the best natural road in the world," running an almost bee line, directly West to Pike's Peak; you cross the Republican Fork at Fort Riley, and thence through our town and along the North side of Smoky Hill. The first stream after leaving here, is Chapman's Creek, with a bridge across it; the next is Mud Creek, with a good bridge; next, Solomon's Fork, and last the Saline Fork, both with excellent ferries."

There can be no doubt but the central route, here indicated, is the shortest and best, and we think the principle parties going over the plains in the spring will take passage over this road.