May 2024 • Nebraskaland 37
elaborated on the story in his History of Western Nebraska.
Shumway claimed that the voyage took place in 1852 and
that the El Paso reached Fort Mitchell near Scottsbluff and
continued upstream to the site of present-day Guernsey Dam
in Wyoming. But Shumway did not cite any sources, nor could
he remember any when Nebraska State Historical Society
superintendent Addison Sheldon later asked him about it.
But the story continued to spread, repeated as fact in
other articles and books. Historian William E. Lass fi nally
debunked it in a 2008 article for Nebraska History Magazine.
Lass showed that the El Paso was a real Missouri River
steamboat, a 260-ton sidewheeler that measured 174 feet
long and 26 feet wide. (Try to picture that next time you cross
the Platte!) But he also showed that the boat's whereabouts
were well documented in 1852 and 1853 — and the El Paso
was never on the Platte. As for Fort Mitchell, its purported
A Union Army pontoon bridge near Fredericksburg, Virginia, in 1863. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS PRINTS & PHOTOGRAPHS
The steamboat El Paso's career on the Missouri River lasted
barely fi ve years, from its fi rst voyage in March 1850 until it
struck a snag and sank on April 10, 1855.
