The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey

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Hall Kelley’s General Circular for prospective emigrants (1831), Thomas Farnham’s Travels in the Western Prairies (1843), poor economic conditions in the Mississippi Valley, and episodic outbreaks of disease prompted thousands to take a chance on emigration to Oregon. By the early 1840s, the willing and determined, captured by the idea of Oregon, decided to ignore the naysayers and embrace the adventure. They took the risks, as the saying went, “to see the elephant,” a nineteenth-century phrase that meant enduring hardships to experience the unbelievable. In April 1859, an expedition of U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers led by Captain James H. Simpson left Camp Floyd, Utah, to establish an army supply route across the Great Basin to the eastern slope of the Sierras. Upon return in early August, Simpson reported that he had surveyed the Central Overland Route from Camp Floyd to Genoa, Nevada. This route went through central Nevada (roughly where U.S. Route 50 goes today) and was about 280 miles (450km) shorter than the "standard" Humboldt River California trail route. [40] The Central Route in Nevada

For an Oregon-California trail map up to the junction in Idaho NPS Oregon National Historic Trail Map. Retrieved January 28, 2009. Similarly, emigrant Martha Gay Masterson, who traveled the trail with her family at the age of 13, mentioned the fascination she and other children felt for the graves and loose skulls they would find near their camps. [31] The Oregon Trail developed from the discovery in 1812 of a wagon-safe route over the Continental Divide at South Pass in present-day Wyoming by Robert Stuart, a Pacific Fur Company man returning from Fort Astor. Stuart had gone east from the Columbia, traversing the Blue Mountains, ascending the Snake River in present-day Idaho, and veering south to South Pass and down the Platte River to the Missouri. His route meant, as the Missouri Gazette predicted in 1813, that “a journey to the Western Sea will not be considered (within a few years) of much greater importance than a trip to New York.” Federal Writers Project (1939). The Oregon Trail: The Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. American Guide Series. New York: Hastings House. p.215 . Retrieved January 11, 2013– via Open Library.Besides skirmishes with the Native American tribes, the early settlers were caught in the middle of a war between the U.S. government and the British. The United States wanted to expand its territory to the north and west, but the British still had interests in those North American regions. The United States managed to defend itself against the British and their Canadian and Native American hired guns even as the British captured Washington D.C. for a time. The War of 1812 ended in 1815, and colonization of the Pacific Northwest resumed sporadically after the ratification of the Treaty of Ghent. Oregon Trail Memoirs Larry and Carolyn. "Franklin Missouri The Beginning of the Santa Fe Trail". www.santafetrailresearch.com . Retrieved October 13, 2017. McClelland, John M., Jr. Cowlitz Corridor: Historical River Highway of the Pacific Northwest. Longview Publishing, 1953. Burcham, Mildred Baker. ”Scott’s and Applegate’s Old South Road.” Oregon Historical Quarterly (December 1940): 405-23.

Crawford, Medorem (1897). Journal of Medorem Crawford: an account of his trip across the plains with the Oregon pioneers of 1842 (DJVU). Star Job Office. OCLC 5001642.If you haven’t gotten enough of the Oregon Trail fun here, you can have even more fun at home with the new card game. You and the family can now play at home with the all new card game made by the same makers! Over time, two major heavily used cutoffs were established in Wyoming. The Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff was established in 1844 and cut about 70 miles (110km) off the main route. It leaves the main trail about 10 miles (16km) west of South Pass and heads almost due west crossing Big Sandy Creek and then about 45 miles (72km) of waterless, very dusty desert before reaching the Green River near the present town of La Barge. Ferries here transferred them across the Green River. From there the Sublette–Greenwood Cutoff trail had to cross a mountain range to connect with the main trail near Cokeville in the Bear River Valley. [57] Prairie Scene: Mirage, by Alfred Jacob Miller Many who went were between the ages of 12 and 24. Between 1860 and 1870, the U.S. population increased by seven million; about 350,000 of this increase was in the Western states. The wagons were ten to twelve feet long, four feet wide, and two to three feet deep, with fifty-inch diameter rear wheels and forty-four-inch front wheels made of oak with iron tire rims. The wagons weighed from 1,000 to 1,400 pounds and carried loads between 1,500 and 2,500 pounds. They had sturdy hardwood box frames that were made as watertight as possible to facilitate stream and river crossings. Most overlanders used two or four yoked oxen to pull their wagons, because they had more endurance and were less expensive than horses or mules and they were less likely to be stolen by Indians. Prudent travelers carried spare parts, grease for axle bearings, heavy rope, chains, and pulleys to keep wagons repaired and to aid in rescue from predicaments.

The Trail to Oregon' musical review: A new kind of Starkid show". Hypable. July 14, 2014 . Retrieved May 22, 2020. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson issued the following instructions to Meriwether Lewis: "The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by its course & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado and/or other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for commerce." [2] Although Lewis and William Clark found a path to the Pacific Ocean, it was not until 1859 that a direct and practicable route, the Mullan Road, connected the Missouri River to the Columbia River. [3]The Oregon Trail" is a song written by Peter DeRose and Billy Hill, recorded by singing cowboy artist Tex Ritter in 1935, and by Australian country musician Tex Morton in 1936. The animated film Calamity, a Childhood of Martha Jane Cannary portrays the expedition of a dozen wagons to Oregon, part of which was the young Calamity Jane. Interest in the Oregon Trail continues to generate state, regional, national, and international interest. Books, articles, and ephemera publications document new findings and reprint diaries, memoirs, and descriptions of the trail and travel conditions. Today’s tourists can see evidence of the trail in wagon ruts preserved on the landscape in many locations. As an icon of Oregon history, the Oregon Trail is likely to endure in scholarship and in heritage commemorations.

Winter Quarters Project". Winterquarters.byu.edu. Archived from the original on July 19, 2011 . Retrieved March 19, 2011. Bowen, William A. The Willamette Valley: Migration and Settlement on the Oregon Frontier. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1978.From the letter of Anna Maria King, in Covered Wagon Women, Volume 1, by Kenneth L. Holmes, ebook version, University of Nebraska Press: Lincoln, 1983, p. 41. There were other possible migration paths for early settlers, miners, or travelers to California or Oregon besides the Oregon trail before the establishment of the transcontinental railroads.