In the 1840s and 50s nearly a half million pioneers, gold rush Forty Niners and Pony Express Riders embarked along the Lander Trail. It left the Oregon Trail at South Pass before rejoining it in Idaho at Salt Springs. In 1863, John Bozeman and John Jacobs found the Bozeman Trail to be a  shortcut to the gold rush in Montana. It passed on through the Powder River Basin and into the hunting area of the Northern Plains Indians. For more then ten years the trail saw many struggles between the tribes and the U.S. military causing The Great Sioux War of 1876.

There were ten more trails to be found, (The Brider Trail opened in 1864 made for a safer trail for those who were looking to make their fortune in the Montana gold rush. Then there was the California Trail as eager Forty Niners and farmers packed up their families and all of their belongings and went West.

In 1849 and 1850, many Cherokees left their reservation in Oklahoma to seek their fortune as well. Then the Cheyenne Deadwood Stage Road took some passengers from Cheyenne to the gold fields in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The best planned mass migration in American history was in 1846 as the first group of Mormons led by Brigham Young went from Nauvoo, Illinois to Great Salt Lake City in Utah also known as the Mormon Pioneer Trail. Then came the Nez Perce Trail, Oregon Trail, Pony Express and the Texas Trail.