Wyoming Historians Collab on Book About the Platte River Raids

Author and historian Janelle Molony has paired up with up-and-comer Kylie Louise McCormick to write a story about Wyoming's past. Coming in 2024, "Emigrant Tales of the Platte River Raids" delves into the summer of 1864, when when record-high numbers of families, miners, and defectors traveled by covered wagon train through the “Black Hills of Idaho Territory,” which is now familiar to Wyomingites as Medicine Bow Forest.

The book focuses on July 12, 13, and 14 when about 350 Northern Plains Indians came from the Powder River Basin to the northern bend of the North Platte River in Douglas. Those three days were violent, and many travelers on the trails were hurt, some killed.

About 70 families are featured in the new book -- 30 of their living descendants contributed. "Western fans might easily recognize family names such as Wyatt Earp and Johnny Ringo, who were just teenagers on their journey across the Plains, but Civil War fans will be pleased to explore a new battlefront that has previously lacked recognition."

“One of my biggest surprises when studying all the primary sources,” Molony shares, “is that the family of abolitionist John Brown spent time on the trail with my own family.” Molony is a descendant of Dr. James and Sarah Rousseau, who were part of the Pella Company led from Iowa to California by retired Union Sargent Nicholas Earp.

UPDATE: Paperback copies of the book will not be available until the end of January.