01Biography
Joseph Walker grew up in Tennessee, moved to Missouri and served as a sheriff there before he went west in 1832 as one of Benjamin Bonneville's two lieutenants. In 1833 Bonneville sent him from the Green River with a party of trappers, and they went on to California. They followed the Humboldt River across present-day Nevada and crossed the Sierra Nevada, probably the first white men to see the giant sequoias. The Humboldt route later became part of the California Trail.
In 1843 Walker guided the wagons of the Chiles company, emigrants bound for California. At Fort Hall the company split, and Walker took the families and wagons south. Short of food, they left the wagons behind and rode around the south end of the Sierra Nevada, crossing at Walker Pass on December 3.
02Why they matter
Opened much of the route along the Humboldt River that California-bound emigrants later followed, and guided some of the earliest emigrant wagons toward California.
03How they died
He went on exploring and guiding in the West for many years, and in 1844 and 1845 he guided John C. Frémont. He settled at his nephew's ranch in Contra Costa County, California, and died there on October 27, 1876, aged 77.
04Legacy
Walker Pass in California and Walker Lake and the Walker River in Nevada carry his name. Frémont wrote that Walker had 'more knowledge of these parts than any man I know.' His gravestone at Martinez, California, recalls his 1833 camp at Yosemite.