Thousands Of Unmarked Graves Likely Under South Idaho Town

Southwestern Idaho at one point in American history was a heavily traveled region of the state for ocean bound homesteaders. In the mid to late nineteenth century, the route many of these westward movers took also became a mass graveyard for men, women, children, and domesticated animals.

Most educated Americans are familiar with the Oregon Trail. It spanned 2,200 miles from Missouri to Oregon and was a main route to the west for Americans for more than two decades in the 1800s. The nickname for the trail is the "2,000-mile Long Graveyard," according to Notes From The Frontier.

There's another route that passed north of the modern-day community of Bliss, Idaho, known as the North Alternate Route (NAOT) that saw its share of fatalities during this same time period as well. It's estimated that the NAOT was the site of not just numerous deaths related to starvation, dehydration, sickness, and crime, but massacres as well.

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The North Alternate Route In Idaho Was Used For Travel In The 1800s And Was Deadly

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Radar, cadaver dogs, and excavation have turned up numerous unmarked graves in this region of southwestern Idaho between Bliss and the Oregon border. It is thought that the remains of thousands of people and animals remain undisturbed in and around this community, according to the Oregon-California Trails Association.