An Early Variant Helped Boost Immigration
With the above facts we can begin to better understand the importance of the route that was soon opened directly north of Emmett, in connecting the whole Goodale Cutoff: It soon spliced the Goodale routes together in their middle. The first 203 miles from Fort Hall to Ditto Creek, Elmore County, and the trail north from Boise was by this variant connected to the Powder River, OR. The new route provided a much more useable trail to the meeting with the Oregon Trail. A great deal of traffic continued to pass both ways on the Goodale North for several years, …