Farnum and Durant and obtaining from voyagers, immigrants, and others all the information I could in regard to the country farther west. There was keen competition at that time for the control of the vast immigration crossing the plains, and Kansas City, Fort Leavenworth (then the government post), St. Joseph and Council Bluffs were points of concentration on the Missouri. The trails from all points converged in the Platte valley at or near old Fort Kearney, following its waters to the South Pass. A portion of the Kansas City immigration followed the valley of the Arkansas west, and thence through New Mexico. The great bulk of the immigration was finally concentrated at Council Bluffs as the best crossing of the Missouri river. From my explorations and the information I had obtained with the aid of the Mormons and others, I mapped and made an itinerary of a line from Council Bluffs through to Utah, California and Oregon, giving the camping places for each night, and showing where wood, water and fords of the streams could be found. Distributed broadcast by the local interests of this route the map and itinerary had no small influence in turning the mass of overland immigration to Council Bluffs, where it crossed the Missouri and took the great Platte valley route. This route was up that valley to its fork to Salt Lake and California by way of the Humboldt, and to Oregon by the way of the Snake and Columbia rivers. This is today the route of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific to California and the LTnion Pacific to Oregon.