Last updated: July 25, 2026
Place
Elkhorn River Crossing
Photo/L. Kreutzer
Quick Facts
Location:
Elkhorn Crossing Recreation Area, 252nd St. & Bennington Rd., Douglas Co., NE GPS 41.360324 -96.302230
Significance:
The Elkhorn was the first major river to be crossed by the 1847 vanguard of Latter-day Saints on the way west from Winter Quarters. The vanguard emigrants established a ferry here that served the ongoing Church emigration as well as forty-niners and other travelers following the overland trail along the north side of the Platte River.
Designation:
Historic site on the California and Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trails.
MANAGED BY:
Nebraska Association of Resources Districts
Amenities
13 listed
Beach/Water Access, Canoe/Kayak/Small Boat Launch, Cellular Signal, Electrical Hookup - Boat/RV, Historical/Interpretive Information/Exhibits, Parking - Auto, Parking - Boat Trailer, Picnic Shelter/Pavilion, Picnic Table, Playground, Restroom, Tent Campsites, Wheelchair Accessible
Six loaded wagons set out from Winter Quarters on April 5, 1847, and headed across the Nebraska prairie toward the Elkhorn River, a tributary of the Platte. The party of Latter-day Saints emigrants reached the Elkhorn’s east bank at about noon on April 10, then followed it south for 8 miles to a likely crossing place where timber was plentiful. The exact location of the crossing is not definitively known, but the National Park Service has marked this place, 27 miles from Winter Quarters, as the likely spot.
The river here that spring was 160 feet wide and 4 feet deep with a “rambunctious” current, as one emigrant observed. It was too fast and deep to drive the wagons across, but company scouts who arrived a few days earlier had built a raft of cottonwood logs and left it at the riverbank for the arriving emigrants. They hitched their oxen to the raft, loaded it with people and wagons, and towed the makeshift ferry back and forth across the stream for 2 days as more parties continued to arrive.
By late afternoon on April 11, the company’s 72 wagons were rolling down the west bank of the Elkhorn toward its confluence with the Platte. Latter-day Saints continued to operate a ferry at Elkhorn Crossing for several years. In addition to helping their own people cross the Elkhorn, the ferrymen earned money by collecting tolls from forty-niners and others traveling along the north side of the Platte. Their business was successful, as it was fed traffic by several converging trails from the Council Buffs ferries. California-bound George Harter, traveling in 1864, wrote of his experience camping along the Elkhorn, where his 6-member party picketed their mules in the tall grass. “Here the mosquitoes were so plentiful and ferocious they covered the mules as with a blanket. By midnight the mules got so excited they were likely to get lose and leave us, so we hitched up and started. As long as we were among these pests we made night drives, starting about sundown and drove all night and camped the first suitable place in the morning.”
Today, this place on the Elkhorn is part of Nebraska’s Elkhorn Crossing Recreation Area. A National Park Service wayside exhibit at the river’s edge interprets the crossing.
Site Information
Location (Elkhorn Crossing Recreation Area, 252nd St. & Bennington Rd., Douglas Co., NE GPS 41.360324 -96.302230)