Map of states and counties affected by the Dust Bowl between 1935 and 1938 originally prepared by the Soil Conservation Service. The most severely affected counties during this period are colored .
The Dust Bowl was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damaged the ecology and agriculture of the American and Canadian prairies during the 1930s; severe drought and a failure to apply dryland farming methods to prevent the aeolian processes (wind erosion) caused the phenomenon. The drought came in three waves, 1934, 1936, and 1939–1940, but some regions of the High Plains experienced drought conditions for as many as eight years.
With insufficient understanding of the ecology of the plains, farmers had conducted extensive deep plowing of the virgin topsoil of the Great Plains during the previous decade; this had displaced the native, deep-rooted grasses that normally trapped soil and moisture even during periods of drought and high winds. The rapid mechanization of farm equipment, especially small gasoline tractors, and widespread use of the combine harvester
contributed to farmers' decisions to convert arid grassland (much of
which received no more than 10 inches (~250 mm) of precipitation per
year) to cultivated cropland. During the drought of the 1930s, the unanchored soil turned to dust,
which the prevailing winds blew away in huge clouds that sometimes
blackened the sky. These choking billows of dust – named "black
blizzards" or "black rollers" – traveled cross country, reaching as far
as the East Coast and striking such cities as New York City and Washington, D.C. On the plains, they often reduced visibility to 3 feet (1 m) or less. Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, to witness the "Black Sunday"
black blizzards of April 14, 1935; Edward Stanley, the Kansas City news
editor of the Associated Press, coined the term "Dust Bowl" while
rewriting Geiger's news story.
While the term "the Dust Bowl" was originally a reference to the
geographical area affected by the dust, today it usually refers to the
event itself (the term "Dirty Thirties" is also sometimes used). The
drought and erosion of the Dust Bowl affected 100,000,000 acres
(400,000 km2) that centered on the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma and touched adjacent sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas.
The Dust Bowl forced tens of thousands of poverty-stricken families to
abandon their farms, unable to pay mortgages or grow crops, and losses
reached $25 million per day by 1936 (equivalent to $460,000,000 in
2019). Many of these families, who were often known as "Okies" because so many of them came from Oklahoma, migrated to California and other states to find that the Great Depression had rendered economic conditions there little better than those they had left.
The Dust Bowl area lies principally west of the 100th meridian on the High Plains, characterized by plains which vary from rolling in the north to flat in the Llano Estacado. Elevation ranges from 2,500 feet (760 m) in the east to 6,000 feet (1,800 m) at the base of the Rocky Mountains. The area is semiarid, receiving less than 20 inches (510 mm) of rain annually; this rainfall supports the shortgrass prairie
biome originally present in the area. The region is also prone to
extended drought, alternating with unusual wetness of equivalent
duration.
During wet years, the rich soil provides bountiful agricultural output,
but crops fail during dry years. The region is also subject to high
winds.
During early European and American exploration of the Great Plains, this region was thought unsuitable for European-style agriculture; explorers called it the Great American Desert. The lack of surface water and timber made the region less attractive than other areas for pioneer settlement and agriculture.
The federal government encouraged settlement and development of the Plains for agriculture via the Homestead Act of 1862, offering settlers 160-acre (65 ha) plots. With the end of the Civil War in 1865 and the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad
in 1869, waves of new migrants and immigrants reached the Great Plains,
and they greatly increased the acreage under cultivation. An unusually wet period in the Great Plains mistakenly led settlers and the federal government to believe that "rain follows the plow" (a popular phrase among real estate promoters) and that the climate of the region had changed permanently. While initial agricultural endeavors were primarily cattle ranching, the adverse effect of harsh winters on the cattle, beginning in 1886, a short drought in 1890, and general overgrazing, led many landowners to increase the amount of land under cultivation.
Recognizing the challenge of cultivating marginal arid land, the
United States government expanded on the 160 acres (65 ha) offered under
the Homestead Act – granting 640 acres (260 ha) to homesteaders in
western Nebraska under the Kinkaid Act (1904) and 320 acres (130 ha) elsewhere in the Great Plains under the Enlarged Homestead Act of 1909.
Waves of European settlers arrived in the plains at the beginning of
the 20th century. A return of unusually wet weather seemingly confirmed
a previously held opinion that the "formerly" semiarid area could
support large-scale agriculture. At the same time, technological
improvements such as mechanized plowing and mechanized harvesting made
it possible to operate larger properties without increasing labor costs.
The combined effects of the disruption of the Russian Revolution, which decreased the supply of wheat and other commodity crops, and World War I increased agricultural prices; this demand encouraged farmers to dramatically increase cultivation. For example, in the Llano Estacado of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas, the area of farmland was doubled between 1900 and 1920, then tripled again between 1925 and 1930. The agricultural methods favored by farmers during this period created the conditions for large-scale erosion under certain environmental conditions.
The widespread conversion of the land by deep plowing and other soil
preparation methods to enable agriculture eliminated the native grasses
which held the soil in place and helped retain moisture during dry
periods. Furthermore, cotton farmers left fields bare during winter months, when winds in the High Plains are highest, and burned the stubble as a means to control weeds prior to planting, thereby depriving the soil of organic nutrients and surface vegetation.
Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle, Texas, c. 1936
After fairly favorable climatic conditions in the 1920s with good rainfall and relatively moderate winters,
which permitted increased settlement and cultivation in the Great
Plains, the region entered an unusually dry era in the summer of 1930.
During the next decade, the northern plains suffered four of their
seven driest calendar years since 1895, Kansas four of its twelve
driest, and the entire region south to West Texas lacked any period of above-normal rainfall until record rains hit in 1941. When severe drought
struck the Great Plains region in the 1930s, it resulted in erosion and
loss of topsoil because of farming practices at the time. The drought
dried the topsoil and over time it became friable, reduced to a powdery
consistency in some places. Without the indigenous grasses in place, the
high winds that occur on the plains picked up the topsoil and created
the massive dust storms that marked the Dust Bowl period.
The persistent dry weather caused crops to fail, leaving the plowed
fields exposed to wind erosion. The fine soil of the Great Plains was
easily eroded and carried east by strong continental winds.
On November 11, 1933, a very strong dust storm stripped topsoil from desiccated South Dakota
farmlands in just one of a series of severe dust storms that year.
Beginning on May 9, 1934, a strong, two-day dust storm removed massive
amounts of Great Plains topsoil in one of the worst such storms of the Dust Bowl. The dust clouds blew all the way to Chicago, where they deposited 12 million pounds of dust (~ 5500 tonnes). Two days later, the same storm reached cities to the east, such as Cleveland, Buffalo, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C. That winter (1934–1935), red snow fell on New England.
On April 14, 1935, known as "Black Sunday",
20 of the worst "black blizzards" occurred across the entire sweep of
the Great Plains, from Canada south to Texas. The dust storms caused
extensive damage and appeared to turn the day to night; witnesses
reported that they could not see five feet in front of them at certain
points. Denver-based Associated Press reporter Robert E. Geiger happened to be in Boise City, Oklahoma, that day. His story about Black Sunday marked the first appearance of the term Dust Bowl; it was coined by Edward Stanley, Kansas City news editor of the Associated Press, while rewriting Geiger's news story.
Spearman and Hansford County have
been literaly [sic] in a cloud of dust for the past week. Ever since
Friday of last week, there hasn't been a day pass but what the county
was beseieged [sic] with a blast of wind and dirt. On rare occasions
when the wind did subside for a period of hours, the air has been so
filled with dust that the town appeared to be overhung by a fog cloud.
Because of this long seige of dust and every building being filled with
it, the air has become stifling to breathe and many people have
developed sore throats and dust colds as a result.
— Spearman Reporter, March 21, 1935
Much of the farmland was eroded in the aftermath of the Dust Bowl. In
1941, a Kansas agricultural experiment station released a bulletin that
suggested reestablishing native grasses by the "hay method". Developed
in 1937 to speed up the process and increase returns from pasture, the
"hay method" was originally supposed to occur in Kansas naturally over
25–40 years.
After much data analysis, the causal mechanism for the droughts can be
linked to ocean temperature anomalies. Specifically, Atlantic Ocean sea
surface temperatures appear to have had an indirect effect on the
general atmospheric circulation, while Pacific sea surface temperatures
seem to have had the most direct influence.
Human displacement
This catastrophe intensified the economic impact of the Great Depression in the region.
In 1935, many families were forced to leave their farms and travel to
other areas seeking work because of the drought (which at that time had
already lasted four years). The abandonment of homesteads and financial ruin resulting from catastrophic topsoil loss led to widespread hunger and poverty. Dust Bowl conditions fomented an exodus of the displaced from Texas, Oklahoma,
and the surrounding Great Plains to adjacent regions. More than 500,000
Americans were left homeless. More than 350 houses had to be torn down
after one storm alone.
The severe drought and dust storms had left many homeless; others had
their mortgages foreclosed by banks, or felt they had no choice but to
abandon their farms in search of work. Many Americans migrated west looking for work. Parents packed up "jalopies" with their families and a few personal belongings, and headed west in search of work. Some residents of the Plains, especially in Kansas and Oklahoma, fell ill and died of dust pneumonia or malnutrition.
"Broke, baby sick, and car trouble!" – Dorothea Lange's 1937 photo of a Missouri migrant family's jalopy stuck near Tracy, California.
The Dust Bowl exodus was the largest migration in American history
within a short period of time. Between 1930 and 1940, approximately
3.5 million people moved out of the Plains states; of those, it is
unknown how many moved to California.
In just over a year, over 86,000 people migrated to California. This
number is more than the number of migrants to that area during the 1849
Gold Rush. Migrants abandoned farms in Oklahoma, Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Colorado, and New Mexico, but were often generally referred to as "Okies", "Arkies", or "Texies".
Terms such as "Okies" and "Arkies" came to be known in the 1930s as the
standard terms for those who had lost everything and were struggling
the most during the Great Depression.
Not all migrants traveled long distances; some simply went to the
next town or county. So many families left their farms and were on the
move that the proportion between migrants and residents was nearly equal
in the Great Plains states.
Characteristics of migrants
A migratory family from Texas living in a trailer in an Arizona cotton field
Historian James N. Gregory examined Census Bureau
statistics and other records to learn more about the migrants. Based on
a 1939 survey of occupation by the Bureau of Agricultural Economics of
about 116,000 families who arrived in California in the 1930s, he
learned that only 43 percent of southwesterners were doing farm work
immediately before they migrated. Nearly one-third of all migrants were
professional or white-collar workers.
The poor economy displaced more than just farmers as refugees to
California; many teachers, lawyers, and small business owners moved west
with their families during this time. After the Great Depression
ended, some moved back to their original states. Many others remained
where they had resettled. About one-eighth of California's population is
of Okie heritage.
U.S. government response
The greatly expanded participation of government in land management
and soil conservation was an important outcome from the disaster.
Different groups took many different approaches to responding to the
disaster. To identify areas that needed attention, groups such as the Soil Conservation Service
generated detailed soil maps and took photos of the land from the sky.
To create shelterbelts to reduce soil erosion, groups such as the United States Forestry Service's
Prairie States Forestry Project planted trees on private lands.
Finally, groups like the Resettlement Administration, which later became
the Farm Security Administration, encouraged small farm owners to resettle on other lands, if they lived in drier parts of the Plains.
As part of New Deal programs, Congress passed the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act
in 1936, requiring landowners to share the allocated government
subsidies with the laborers who worked on their farms. Under the law,
"benefit payments were continued as measures for production control and
income support, but they were now financed by direct Congressional
appropriations and justified as soil conservation measures. The Act
shifted the parity goal from price equality of agricultural commodities
and the articles that farmers buy to income equality of farm and
non-farm population."
Thus, the parity goal was to re-create the ratio between the purchasing
power of the net income per person on farms from agriculture and that
of the income of persons not on farms that prevailed during 1909–1914.
To stabilize prices, the government paid farmers and ordered more
than six million pigs to be slaughtered. It paid to have the meat
packed and distributed to the poor and hungry. The Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) was established to regulate crop and other surpluses. FDR in an address on the AAA commented,
Let me make one other point clear for the benefit of the
millions in cities who have to buy meats. Last year the Nation suffered a
drought of unparalleled intensity. If there had been no Government
program, if the old order had obtained in 1933 and 1934, that drought on
the cattle ranges of America and in the corn belt would have resulted
in the marketing of thin cattle, immature hogs and the death of these
animals on the range and on the farm, and if the old order had been in
effect those years, we would have had a vastly greater shortage than we
face today. Our program – we can prove it – saved the lives of millions
of head of livestock. They are still on the range, and other millions of
heads are today canned and ready for this country to eat.
The FSRC diverted agricultural commodities to relief organizations.
Apples, beans, canned beef, flour and pork products were distributed
through local relief channels. Cotton goods were later included, to
clothe the needy.
In 1935, the federal government formed a Drought Relief Service
(DRS) to coordinate relief activities. The DRS bought cattle in
counties which were designated emergency areas, for $14 to $20 a head.
Animals determined unfit for human consumption were killed; at the
beginning of the program, more than 50 percent were so designated in
emergency areas. The DRS assigned the remaining cattle to the Federal
Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC) to be used in food distribution to
families nationwide. Although it was difficult for farmers to give up
their herds, the cattle slaughter program helped many of them avoid
bankruptcy. "The government cattle buying program was a blessing to many
farmers, as they could not afford to keep their cattle, and the
government paid a better price than they could obtain in local markets."
President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant the Great Plains Shelterbelt, a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas
to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil itself in
place. The administration also began to educate farmers on soil conservation and anti-erosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices.
In 1937, the federal government began an aggressive campaign to
encourage farmers in the Dust Bowl to adopt planting and plowing methods
that conserved the soil. The government paid reluctant farmers a
dollar an acre to practice the new methods. By 1938, the massive
conservation effort had reduced the amount of blowing soil by 65%.
The land still failed to yield a decent living. In the fall of 1939,
after nearly a decade of dirt and dust, the drought ended when regular
rainfall finally returned to the region. The government still encouraged
continuing the use of conservation methods to protect the soil and
ecology of the Plains.
At the end of the drought, the programs which were implemented
during these tough times helped to sustain a positive relationship
between America's farmers and the federal government.
The President's Drought Committee issued a report in 1935
covering the government's assistance to agriculture during 1934 through
mid-1935: it discussed conditions, measures of relief, organization,
finances, operations, and results of the government's assistance. Numerous exhibits are included in this report.
Long-term economic impact
In many regions, more than 75% of the topsoil was blown away by the end of the 1930s. Land degradation
varied widely. Aside from the short-term economic consequences caused
by erosion, there were severe long-term economic consequences caused by
the Dust Bowl.
By 1940, counties that had experienced the most significant
levels of erosion had a greater decline in agricultural land values. The
per-acre value of farmland declined by 28% in high-erosion counties and
17% in medium-erosion counties, relative to land value changes in
low-erosion counties.
Even over the long-term, the agricultural value of the land often
failed to recover to pre-Dust Bowl levels. In highly eroded areas, less
than 25% of the original agricultural losses were recovered. The
economy adjusted predominantly through large relative population
declines in more-eroded counties, both during the 1930s and through the
1950s.
The economic effects persisted, in part, because of farmers'
failure to switch to more appropriate crops for highly eroded areas.
Because the amount of topsoil had been reduced, it would have been more
productive to shift from crops and wheat to animals and hay. During the
Depression and through at least the 1950s, there was limited relative
adjustment of farmland away from activities that became less productive
in more-eroded counties.
Some of the failure to shift to more productive agricultural
products may be related to ignorance about the benefits of changing land
use. A second explanation is a lack of availability of credit, caused
by the high rate of failure of banks in the Plains states. Because
banks failed in the Dust Bowl region at a higher rate than elsewhere,
farmers could not get the credit they needed to buy capital to shift
crop production.
In addition, profit margins in either animals or hay were still
minimal, and farmers had little incentive in the beginning to change
their crops.
Patrick Allitt recounts how fellow historian Donald Worster responded to his return visit to the Dust Bowl in the mid-1970s when he revisited some of the worst afflicted counties:
Capital-intensive agribusiness had transformed the scene; deep
wells into the aquifer, intensive irrigation, the use of artificial
pesticides and fertilizers, and giant harvesters were creating immense
crops year after year whether it rained or not. According to the
farmers he interviewed, technology had provided the perfect answer to
old troubles, such of the bad days would not return. In Worster's view,
by contrast, the scene demonstrated that America's capitalist high-tech
farmers had learned nothing. They were continuing to work in an
unsustainable way, devoting far cheaper subsidized energy to growing
food than the energy could give back to its ultimate consumers.
In contrast with Worster's pessimism, historian Mathew Bonnifield
argued that the long-term significance of the Dust Bowl was "the triumph
of the human spirit in its capacity to endure and overcome hardships
and reverses."
"Dust bowl farmers of west Texas in town," photograph by Dorothea Lange, June 1937.
The crisis was documented by photographers, musicians, and authors,
many hired during the Great Depression by the federal government. For
instance, the Farm Security Administration hired numerous photographers to document the crisis. Artists such as Dorothea Lange were aided by having salaried work during the Depression.
She captured what have become classic images of the dust storms and
migrant families. Among her most well-known photographs is Destitute Pea Pickers in California. Mother of Seven Children, which depicted a gaunt-looking woman, Florence Owens Thompson,
holding three of her children. This picture expressed the struggles of
people caught by the Dust Bowl and raised awareness in other parts of
the country of its reach and human cost. Decades later, Thompson
disliked the boundless circulation of the photo and resented the fact
she did not receive any money from its broadcast. Thompson felt it gave
her the perception as a Dust Bowl "Okie."
The work of independent artists was also influenced by the crises of the Dust Bowl and the Depression. Author John Steinbeck, borrowing closely from field notes taken by Farm Security Administration worker and author Sanora Babb, wrote The Grapes of Wrath
(1939) about migrant workers and farm families displaced by the Dust
Bowl. Babb's own novel about the lives of the migrant workers, Whose Names Are Unknown,
was written in 1939 but was eclipsed and shelved in response to the
success of Steinbeck's work, and was finally published in 2004. Many of the songs of folk singer Woody Guthrie, such as those on his 1940 album Dust Bowl Ballads,
are about his experiences in the Dust Bowl era during the Great
Depression when he traveled with displaced farmers from Oklahoma to
California and learned their traditional folk and blues songs, earning
him the nickname the "Dust Bowl Troubadour".
Migrants also influenced musical culture wherever they went.
Oklahoma migrants, in particular, were rural Southwesterners who carried
their traditional country music to California. Today, the "Bakersfield Sound"
describes this blend, which developed after the migrants brought
country music to the city. Their new music inspired a proliferation of
country dance halls as far south as Los Angeles.
The 2014 science fiction film Interstellar
features a ravaged 21st-century America which is again scoured by dust
storms (caused by a worldwide pathogen affecting all crops). Along with
inspiration from the 1930s crisis, director Christopher Nolan features interviews from the 2012 documentary The Dust Bowl to draw further parallels.
Aggregate changes in agriculture and population on the Plains
The change in the total value of agricultural land and revenue was
quite similar over the twentieth century. Agricultural land and revenue
boomed during World War I, but fell during the Great Depression and the
1930s. The land and revenue began increasing again in 1940, and has been
increasing since then. From 1910 to the 1940s, total farmland increased
and remained constant until 1970 when it slightly declined. During
this time, total population increased steadily, but there was a slight
dip in trend from 1930 to 1960.
The
route of the Oregon Trail shown on a map of the western United States
from Independence, Missouri (on the eastern end) to Oregon City, Oregon
(on the western end)
Map from The Ox Team, or the Old Oregon Trail 1852–1906, by Ezra Meeker
The Oregon Trail is a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) historic east-west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of the future state of Kansas, and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the future states of Idaho and Oregon.
The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840, and was only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared increasingly farther west, and eventually reached all the way to the Willamette Valley
in Oregon, at which point what came to be called the Oregon Trail was
complete, even as almost annual improvements were made in the form of
bridges, cutoffs, ferries, and roads, which made the trip faster and
safer. From various starting points in Iowa, Missouri, or Nebraska Territory, the routes converged along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory, and led to rich farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.
From the early to mid-1830s (and particularly through the years
1846–1869) the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about
400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, and business owners and
their families. The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers
on the California Trail (from 1843), Mormon Trail (from 1847), and Bozeman Trail (from 1863), before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined as the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer. Today, modern highways, such as Interstate 80 and Interstate 84, follow parts of the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to serve those using the Oregon Trail.
History
Lewis and Clark Expedition
Route of the Lewis and Clark expedition
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 the purposes of commerce." 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.
The first land route across what is now the United States was
mapped by the Lewis and Clark Expedition between 1804 and 1806. Lewis
and Clark initially believed they had found a practical overland route
to the west coast; however, the two passes they found going through the Rocky Mountains, Lemhi Pass and Lolo Pass,
turned out to be much too difficult for prairie schooner wagons to pass
through without considerable road work. On the return trip in 1806,
they traveled from the Columbia River to the Snake River and the Clearwater River over Lolo pass again. They then traveled overland up the Blackfoot River and crossed the Continental Divide
at Lewis and Clark Pass and on to the head of the Missouri River. This
was ultimately a shorter and faster route than the one they followed
west. This route had the disadvantages of being much too rough for
wagons and controlled by the Blackfoot
tribes. Even though Lewis and Clark had only traveled a narrow portion
of the upper Missouri River drainage and part of the Columbia River
drainage, these were considered the two major rivers draining most of
the Rocky Mountains, and the expedition confirmed that there was no
"easy" route through the northern Rocky Mountains as Jefferson had
hoped. Nonetheless, this famous expedition had mapped both the eastern
and western river valleys (Platte and Snake Rivers) that bookend the
route of the Oregon Trail (and other emigrant trails) across the continental divide—they just had not located the South Pass or some of the interconnecting valleys later used in the high country. They did show the way for the mountain men, who within a decade would find a better way across, even if it was not to be an easy way.
Pacific Fur Company
Founded by John Jacob Astor as a subsidiary of his American Fur Company (AFC) in 1810, the Pacific Fur Company (PFC) operated in the Pacific Northwest in the ongoing North American fur trade. Two movements of PFC employees were planned by Astor, one detachment to be sent to the Columbia River by the Tonquin and the other overland under an expedition led by Wilson Price Hunt. Hunt and his party were to find possible supply routes and trapping territories for further fur trading posts. Upon arriving at the river in March 1811, the Tonquin crew began construction of what became Fort Astoria. The ship left supplies and men to continue work on the station and ventured north up the coast to Clayoquot Sound for a trading expedition. While anchored there, Jonathan Thorn insulted an elder Tla-o-qui-aht
who was previously elected by the natives to negotiate a mutually
satisfactory price for animal pelts. Soon after, the vessel was attacked
and overwhelmed by the indigenous Clayoquot, killing many of the crew.
Its Quinault
interpreter survived, and later told the PFC management at Fort Astoria
of the destruction. The next day, the ship was blown up by surviving
crew members.
Under Hunt, fearing attack by the Niitsitapi, the overland expedition veered south of Lewis and Clark's route into what is now Wyoming and in the process passed across Union Pass and into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. From there they went over the Teton Range via Teton Pass and then down to the Snake River into modern Idaho.
They abandoned their horses at the Snake River, made dugout canoes, and
attempted to use the river for transport. After a few days' travel they
soon discovered that steep canyons, waterfalls and impassable rapids
made travel by river impossible. Too far from their horses to retrieve
them, they had to cache most of their goods and walk the rest of the way
to the Columbia River where they made new boats and traveled to the
newly established Fort Astoria. The expedition demonstrated that much of
the route along the Snake River plain and across to the Columbia was
passable by pack train or with minimal improvements, even wagons.[6] This knowledge would be incorporated into the concatenated trail segments as the Oregon Trail took its early shape.
Pacific Fur Company partner Robert Stuart
led a small group of men back east to report to Astor. The group
planned to retrace the path followed by the overland expedition back up
to the east following the Columbia and Snake rivers. Fear of a Native
American attack near Union Pass in Wyoming forced the group further
south where they discovered South Pass, a wide and easy pass over the
Continental Divide. The party continued east via the Sweetwater River, North Platte River (where they spent the winter of 1812–13) and Platte River
to the Missouri River, finally arriving in St. Louis in the spring of
1813. The route they had used appeared to potentially be a practical
wagon route, requiring minimal improvements, and Stuart's journals
provided a meticulous account of most of the route. Because of the War of 1812 and the lack of U.S. fur trading posts in the Pacific Northwest, most of the route was unused for more than 10 years.
The North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company
The first Fort Laramie as it looked prior to 1840. Painting from memory by Alfred Jacob Miller
In August 1811, three months after Fort Astor was established, David Thompson
and his team of British North West Company explorers came floating down
the Columbia to Fort Astoria. He had just completed a journey through
much of western Canada and most of the Columbia River drainage system.
He was mapping the country for possible fur trading posts. Along the way
he camped at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers and posted
a notice claiming the land for Britain and stating the intention of the
North West Company to build a fort on the site (Fort Nez Perces
was later established there). Astor, concerned the British navy would
seize their forts and supplies in the War of 1812, sold to the North
West Company in 1812 their forts, supplies and furs on the Columbia and
Snake River. The North West Company started establishing more forts and
trading posts of its own.
By 1821, when armed hostilities broke out with its Hudson's Bay Company
(HBC) rivals, the North West Company was pressured by the British
government to merge with the HBC. The HBC had nearly a complete monopoly
on trading (and most governing issues) in the Columbia District, or
Oregon Country as it was referred to by the Americans, and also in Rupert's Land. That year the British parliament passed a statute applying the laws of Upper Canada to the district and giving the HBC power to enforce those laws.
From 1812 to 1840, the British, through the HBC, had nearly
complete control of the Pacific Northwest and the western half of the
Oregon Trail. In theory, the Treaty of Ghent,
which ended the War of 1812, restored possession of Oregon territory to
the United States. "Joint occupation" of the region was formally
established by the Anglo-American Convention of 1818.
The British, through the HBC, tried to discourage any U.S. trappers,
traders and settlers from work or settlement in the Pacific Northwest.
By overland travel, American missionaries and early settlers
(initially mostly ex-trappers) started showing up in Oregon around 1824.
Although officially the HBC discouraged settlement because it
interfered with its lucrative fur trade, its Chief Factor at Fort
Vancouver, John McLoughlin,
gave substantial help, including employment, until they could get
established. In the early 1840s thousands of American settlers arrived
and soon greatly outnumbered the British settlers in Oregon.
McLoughlin, despite working for the HBC, gave help in the form of
loans, medical care, shelter, clothing, food, supplies and seed to U.S.
emigrants. These new emigrants often arrived in Oregon tired, worn out,
nearly penniless, with insufficient food or supplies, just as winter was
coming on. McLoughlin would later be hailed as the Father of Oregon.
The York Factory Express,
establishing another route to the Oregon territory, evolved from an
earlier express brigade used by the North West Company between Fort
Astoria and Fort William, Ontario on Lake Superior. By 1825 the HBC started using two brigades, each setting out from opposite ends of the express route—one from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River and the other from York Factory
on Hudson Bay—in spring and passing each other in the middle of the
continent. This established a "quick"—about 100 days for 2,600 miles
(4,200 km) one way—to resupply its forts and fur trading centers as well
as collecting the furs the posts had bought and transmitting messages
between Fort Vancouver and York Factory on Hudson Bay.
HBC's York Factory Express trade route, 1820s to 1840s. Modern political boundaries shown.
The HBC built a new much larger Fort Vancouver in 1824 slightly
upstream of Fort Astoria on the north side of the Columbia River (they
were hoping the Columbia would be the future Canada–U.S. border). The
fort quickly became the center of activity in the Pacific Northwest.
Every year ships would come from London to the Pacific (via Cape Horn)
to drop off supplies and trade goods in its trading posts in the
Pacific Northwest and pick up the accumulated furs used to pay for these
supplies. It was the nexus for the fur trade on the Pacific Coast; its
influence reached from the Rocky Mountains to the Hawaiian Islands, and from Russian Alaska
into Mexican-controlled California. At its pinnacle in about 1840, Fort
Vancouver and its Factor (manager) watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, 6
ships, and about 600 employees.
When American emigration over the Oregon Trail began in earnest
in the early 1840s, for many settlers the fort became the last stop on
the Oregon Trail where they could get supplies, aid and help before
starting their homesteads.
Fort Vancouver was the main re-supply point for nearly all Oregon trail
travelers until U.S. towns could be established. The HBC established Fort Colvile in 1825 on the Columbia River near Kettle Falls as a good site to collect furs and control the upper Columbia River fur trade. Fort Nisqually was built near the present town of DuPont, Washington and was the first HBC fort on Puget Sound. Fort Victoria was erected in 1843 and became the headquarters of operations in British Columbia, eventually growing into modern-day Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia.
The Oregon Country/Columbia District stretched from 42'N to 54 40'N. The most heavily disputed portion is highlighted.
By 1840 the HBC had three forts: Fort Hall (purchased from Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth in 1837), Fort Boise and Fort Nez Perce on the western end of the Oregon Trail route as well as Fort Vancouver near its terminus in the Willamette Valley. With minor exceptions they all gave substantial and often desperately needed aid to the early Oregon Trail pioneers.
When the fur trade slowed in 1840 because of fashion changes in
men's hats, the value of the Pacific Northwest to the British was
seriously diminished. Canada had few potential settlers who were willing
to move more than 2,500 miles (4,000 km) to the Pacific Northwest,
although several hundred ex-trappers, British and American, and their
families did start settling in Oregon, Washington and California. They
used most of the York Express route through northern Canada. In 1841, James Sinclair, on orders from Sir George Simpson, guided nearly 200 settlers from the Red River Colony (located at the junction of the Assiniboine River and Red River near present Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) into the Oregon territory.
This attempt at settlement failed when most of the families joined the
settlers in the Willamette Valley, with their promise of free land and
HBC-free government.
In 1846, the Oregon Treaty ending the Oregon boundary dispute was signed with Britain. The British lost the land north of the Columbia River they had so long controlled. The new Canada–United States border was established much further north at the 49th parallel.
The treaty granted the HBC navigation rights on the Columbia River for
supplying their fur posts, clear titles to their trading post properties
allowing them to be sold later if they wanted, and left the British
with good anchorages at Vancouver
and Victoria. It gave the United States what it mostly wanted, a
"reasonable" boundary and a good anchorage on the West Coast in Puget
Sound. While there were almost no United States settlers in the future
state of Washington in 1846, the United States had already demonstrated
it could induce thousands of settlers to go to the Oregon Territory, and
it would be only a short time before they would vastly outnumber the
few hundred HBC employees and retirees living in Washington.
Reports from expeditions in 1806 by Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and in 1819 by Major Stephen Long described the Great Plains as "unfit for human habitation" and as "The Great American Desert".
These descriptions were mainly based on the relative lack of timber and
surface water. The images of sandy wastelands conjured up by terms like
"desert" were tempered by the many reports of vast herds of millions of
Plains Bison that somehow managed to live in this "desert".
In the 1840s, the Great Plains appeared to be unattractive for
settlement and were illegal for homesteading until well after
1846—initially it was set aside by the U.S. government for Native
American settlements. The next available land for general settlement,
Oregon, appeared to be free for the taking and had fertile lands,
disease free climate (yellow fever and malaria were then prevalent in much of the Missouri and Mississippi River drainage), extensive uncut, unclaimed forests, big rivers, potential seaports, and only a few nominally British settlers.
In fall of 1823, Jedediah Smith and Thomas Fitzpatrick led their trapping crew south from the Yellowstone River
to the Sweetwater River. They were looking for a safe location to spend
the winter. Smith reasoned since the Sweetwater flowed east it must
eventually run into the Missouri River. Trying to transport their
extensive fur collection down the Sweetwater and North Platte River,
they found after a near disastrous canoe crash that the rivers were too
swift and rough for water passage. On July 4, 1824, they cached their
furs under a dome of rock they named Independence Rock
and started their long trek on foot to the Missouri River. Upon
arriving back in a settled area they bought pack horses (on credit) and
retrieved their furs. They had re-discovered the route that Robert
Stuart had taken in 1813—eleven years before. Thomas Fitzpatrick was
often hired as a guide when the fur trade dwindled in 1840. Smith was
killed by Comanche natives around 1831.
Up to 3,000 mountain men were trappers and explorers,
employed by various British and United States fur companies or working
as free trappers, who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from
about 1810 to the early 1840s. They usually traveled in small groups for
mutual support and protection. Trapping took place in the fall when the
fur became prime. Mountain men primarily trapped beaver
and sold the skins. A good beaver skin could bring up to $4 at a time
when a man's wage was often $1 per day. Some were more interested in
exploring the West. In 1825, the first significant American Rendezvous occurred on the Henry's Fork of the Green River.
The trading supplies were brought in by a large party using pack trains
originating on the Missouri River. These pack trains were then used to
haul out the fur bales. They normally used the north side of the Platte
River—the same route used 20 years later by the Mormon Trail.
For the next 15 years the American rendezvous was an annual event
moving to different locations, usually somewhere on the Green River in
the future state of Wyoming.
Each rendezvous, occurring during the slack summer period, allowed the
fur traders to trade for and collect the furs from the trappers and
their Native American allies without having the expense of building or
maintaining a fort or wintering over in the cold Rockies. In only a few
weeks at a rendezvous a year's worth of trading and celebrating would
take place as the traders took their furs and remaining supplies back
east for the winter and the trappers faced another fall and winter with
new supplies. Trapper Jim Beckwourth
described the scene as one of "Mirth, songs, dancing, shouting,
trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target-shooting, yarns,
frolic, with all sorts of extravagances that white men or Indians could
invent."
In 1830, William Sublette brought the first wagons carrying his trading
goods up the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers before
crossing over South Pass to a fur trade rendezvous on the Green River
near the future town of Big Piney,
Wyoming. He had a crew that dug out the gullies and river crossings and
cleared the brush where needed. This established that the eastern part
of most of the Oregon Trail was passable by wagons. In the late 1830s
the HBC instituted a policy intended to destroy or weaken the American
fur trade companies. The HBC's annual collection and re-supply Snake
River Expedition was transformed to a trading enterprise. Beginning in
1834, it visited the American Rendezvous to undersell the American
traders—losing money but undercutting the American fur traders. By 1840
the fashion in Europe and Britain shifted away from the formerly very
popular beaver felt hats and prices for furs rapidly declined and the
trapping almost ceased.
Fur traders tried to use the Platte River, the main route of the
eastern Oregon Trail, for transport but soon gave up in frustration as
its many channels and islands combined with its muddy waters were too
shallow, crooked and unpredictable to use for water transport. The
Platte proved to be unnavigable. The Platte River and North Platte River
Valley, however, became an easy roadway for wagons, with its nearly
flat plain sloping easily up and heading almost due west.
There were several U.S. government-sponsored explorers who
explored part of the Oregon Trail and wrote extensively about their
explorations. Captain Benjamin Bonneville
on his expedition of 1832 to 1834 explored much of the Oregon trail and
brought wagons up the Platte, North Platte, Sweetwater route across
South Pass to the Green River in Wyoming. He explored most of Idaho and
the Oregon Trail to the Columbia. The account of his explorations in the
west was published by Washington Irving in 1838. John C. Frémont of the U.S. Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers
and his guide Kit Carson led three expeditions from 1842 to 1846 over
parts of California and Oregon. His explorations were written up by him
and his wife Jessie Benton Frémont and were widely published. The first detailed map of California and Oregon were drawn by Frémont and his topographers and cartographers in about 1848.
Missionaries
In 1834, The Dalles Methodist Mission was founded by Reverend Jason Lee just east of Mount Hood on the Columbia River. In 1836, Henry H. Spalding and Marcus Whitman traveled west to establish the Whitman Mission near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington. The party included the wives of the two men, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding,
who became the first European-American women to cross the Rocky
Mountains. En route, the party accompanied American fur traders going to
the 1836 rendezvous on the Green River in Wyoming and then joined
Hudson's Bay Company fur traders traveling west to Fort Nez Perce (also
called Fort Walla Walla).
The group was the first to travel in wagons all the way to Fort Hall,
where the wagons were abandoned at the urging of their guides. They used
pack animals for the rest of the trip to Fort Walla Walla and then
floated by boat to Fort Vancouver to get supplies before returning to
start their missions. Other missionaries, mostly husband and wife teams
using wagon and pack trains, established missions in the Willamette
Valley, as well as various locations in the future states of Washington,
Oregon, and Idaho.
Early emigrants
On May 1, 1839, a group of eighteen men from Peoria, Illinois,
set out with the intention of colonizing the Oregon country on behalf
of the United States of America and drive out the HBC operating there.
The men of the Peoria Party were among the first pioneers to traverse most of the Oregon Trail. The men were initially led by Thomas J. Farnham and called themselves the Oregon Dragoons. They carried a large flag emblazoned with their motto "Oregon Or The Grave". Although the group split up near Bent's Fort on the South Platte and Farnham was deposed as leader, nine of their members eventually did reach Oregon.
In September 1840, Robert Newell, Joseph L. Meek,
and their families reached Fort Walla Walla with three wagons that they
had driven from Fort Hall. Their wagons were the first to reach the
Columbia River over land, and they opened the final leg of Oregon Trail
to wagon traffic.
In 1841, the Bartleson-Bidwell Party
was the first emigrant group credited with using the Oregon Trail to
emigrate west. The group set out for California, but about half the
party left the original group at Soda Springs, Idaho, and proceeded to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, leaving their wagons at Fort Hall.
On May 16, 1842, the second organized wagon train set out from Elm Grove, Missouri, with more than 100 pioneers. The party was led by Elijah White. The group broke up after passing Fort Hall with most of the single men hurrying ahead and the families following later.
Great Migration of 1843
A wagon converted to a raft for the last stage of the emigration.
In what was dubbed "The Great Migration of 1843" or the "Wagon Train
of 1843", an estimated 700 to 1,000 emigrants left for Oregon. They were led initially by John Gantt,
a former U.S. Army Captain and fur trader who was contracted to guide
the train to Fort Hall for $1 per person. The winter before, Marcus
Whitman had made a brutal mid-winter trip from Oregon to St. Louis to
appeal a decision by his mission backers to abandon several of the
Oregon missions. He joined the wagon train at the Platte River for the
return trip. When the pioneers were told at Fort Hall by agents from the
Hudson's Bay Company that they should abandon their wagons there and
use pack animals the rest of the way, Whitman disagreed and volunteered
to lead the wagons to Oregon. He believed the wagon trains were large
enough that they could build whatever road improvements they needed to
make the trip with their wagons. The biggest obstacle they faced was in
the Blue Mountains of Oregon where they had to cut and clear a trail through heavy timber. The wagons were stopped at The Dalles,
Oregon, by the lack of a road around Mount Hood. The wagons had to be
disassembled and floated down the treacherous Columbia River and the
animals herded over the rough Lolo trail
to get by Mt. Hood. Nearly all of the settlers in the 1843 wagon trains
arrived in the Willamette Valley by early October. A passable wagon
trail now existed from the Missouri River to The Dalles. Jesse
Applegate's account of the emigration, "A Day with the Cow Column in 1843," has been described as "the best bit of literature left to us by any participant in the [Oregon] pioneer movement..." and has been republished several times from 1868 to 1990.
In 1846, the Barlow Road
was completed around Mount Hood, providing a rough but completely
passable wagon trail from the Missouri River to the Willamette Valley:
about 2,000 miles (3,200 km).
Oregon Country
In 1843, settlers of the Willamette Valley drafted the Organic Laws of Oregon
organizing land claims within the Oregon Country. Married couples were
granted at no cost (except for the requirement to work and improve the
land) up to 640 acres (2.6 km2) (a section or square mile), and unmarried settlers could claim 320 acres (1.3 km2).
As the group was a provisional government with no authority, these
claims were not valid under United States or British law, but they were
eventually honored by the United States in the Donation Land Act of 1850. The Donation Land Act provided for married settlers to be granted 320 acres (1.3 km2) and unmarried settlers 160 acres (0.65 km2).
Following the expiration of the act in 1854 the land was no longer free
but cost $1.25 per acre ($3.09/hectare) with a limit of 320 acres
(1.3 km2)—the same as most other unimproved government land.
Women on the Overland Trail
Consensus interpretations, as found in John Faragher's book, Women and Men on the Overland Trail
(1979), held that men and women's power within marriage was uneven.
This meant that women did not experience the trail as liberating, but
instead only found harder work than they had handled back east. However,
feminist scholarship, by historians such as Lillian Schlissel, Sandra Myres, and Glenda Riley,
suggests men and women did not view the West and western migration in
the same way. Whereas men might deem the dangers of the trail acceptable
if there was a strong economic reward at the end, women viewed those
dangers as threatening to the stability and survival of the family. Once
they arrived at their new western home, women's public role in building
western communities and participating in the western economy gave them a
greater authority than they had known back East. There was a "female
frontier" that was distinct and different from that experienced by men.
Women's diaries kept during their travels or the letters they
wrote home once they arrived at their destination supports these
contentions. Women wrote with sadness and concern of the numerous deaths
along the trail. Anna Maria King wrote to her family in 1845 about her
trip to the Luckiamute Valley Oregon and of the multiple deaths experienced by her traveling group:
But listen to the deaths: Sally Chambers, John King and
his wife, their little daughter Electa and their babe, a son 9 months
old, and Dulancy C. Norton's sister are gone. Mr. A. Fuller lost his
wife and daughter Tabitha. Eight of our two families have gone to their
long home.
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.
Anna Maria King, like many other women, also advised family and
friends back home of the realities of the trip and offered advice on how
to prepare for the trip. Women also reacted and responded, often
enthusiastically, to the landscape of the West. Betsey Bayley in a
letter to her sister, Lucy P. Griffith described how travelers responded
to the new environment they encountered:
The mountains looked like volcanoes and the appearance
that one day there had been an awful thundering of volcanoes and a
burning world. The valleys were all covered with a white crust and
looked like salaratus. Some of the company used it to raise their bread.
Mormon emigration
Following persecution and mob action in Missouri, Illinois, and other states, and the assassination of their prophet Joseph Smith in 1844, Mormon leader Brigham Young was chosen by the leaders of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) church to lead the Mormon settlers west. He chose to lead his people to the Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah. In 1847 Young led a small, especially picked fast-moving group of men and women from their Winter Quarters encampments near Omaha, Nebraska, and their approximately 50 temporary settlements on the Missouri River in Iowa including Council Bluffs. About 2,200 LDS pioneers went that first year as they filtered in from Mississippi,
Colorado, California, and several other states. The initial pioneers
were charged with establishing farms, growing crops, building fences and
herds, and establishing preliminary settlements to feed and support the
many thousands of emigrants expected in the coming years. After
ferrying across the Missouri River and establishing wagon trains near
what became Omaha, the Mormons followed the northern bank of the Platte
River in Nebraska to Fort Laramie
in present-day Wyoming. They initially started out in 1848 with trains
of several thousand emigrants, which were rapidly split into smaller
groups to be more easily accommodated at the limited springs and
acceptable camping places on the trail. Organized as a complete
evacuation from their previous homes, farms, and cities in Illinois,
Missouri, and Iowa, this group consisted of entire families with no one
left behind. The much larger presence of women and children meant these
wagon trains did not try to cover as much ground in a single day as
Oregon and California bound emigrants. Typically taking about 100 days
to cover the 1,000 miles (1,600 km) trip to Salt Lake City. (The Oregon
and California emigrants typically averaged about 15 miles (24 km) per
day.) In Wyoming, the Mormon emigrants followed the main
Oregon/California/Mormon Trail through Wyoming to Fort Bridger, where they split from the main trail and followed (and improved) the rough path known as Hastings Cutoff, used by the ill-fated Donner Party in 1846.
Between 1847 and 1860, over 43,000 Mormon settlers and tens of thousands of travelers on the California Trail
and Oregon Trail followed Young to Utah. After 1848, the travelers
headed to California or Oregon resupplied at the Salt Lake Valley, and
then went back over the Salt Lake Cutoff, rejoining the trail near the future Idaho–Utah border at the City of Rocks in Idaho.
Starting in 1855, many of the poorer Mormon travelers made the trek with hand built handcarts
and fewer wagons. Guided by experienced guides, handcarts—pulled and
pushed by two to four people—were as fast as ox-drawn wagons and allowed
them to bring 75 to 100 pounds (34 to 45 kg) of possessions plus some
food, bedding, and tents to Utah. Accompanying wagons carried more food
and supplies. Upon arrival in Utah, the handcart pioneers were given or
found jobs and accommodations by individual Mormon families for the
winter until they could become established. About 3,000 out of over
60,000 Mormon pioneers came across with handcarts.
Along the Mormon Trail, the Mormon pioneers established a number
of ferries and made trail improvements to help later travelers and earn
much needed money. One of the better known ferries was the Mormon Ferry
across the North Platte near the future site of Fort Caspar in Wyoming which operated between 1848 and 1852 and the Green River
ferry near Fort Bridger which operated from 1847 to 1856. The ferries
were free for Mormon settlers while all others were charged a toll of
from $3 to $8.
California Gold Rush
In January 1848, James Marshall found gold in the Sierra Nevada portion of the American River, sparking the California Gold Rush.
It is estimated that about two-thirds of the male population in Oregon
went to California in 1848 to cash in on the opportunity. To get there,
they helped build the Lassen Branch of the Applegate-Lassen Trail by
cutting a wagon road through extensive forests. Many returned with
significant gold which helped jump-start the Oregon economy. Over the
next decade, gold seekers from the Midwestern United States and East Coast of the United States
dramatically increased traffic on the Oregon and California Trails. The
"forty-niners" often chose speed over safety and opted to use shortcuts
such as the Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff
in Wyoming which reduced travel time by almost seven days but spanned
nearly 45 miles (72 km) of desert without water, grass, or fuel for
fires. 1849 was the first year of large scale cholera
epidemics in the United States, and thousands are thought to have died
along the trail on their way to California—most buried in unmarked
graves in Kansas and Nebraska. The "adjusted"
1850 U.S. Census of California showed this rush was overwhelmingly male
with about 112,000 males to 8,000 females (with about 5,500 women over
age 15). Women were significantly underrepresented in the California Gold Rush,
and sex ratios did not reach essential equality in California (and
other western states) until about 1950. The relative scarcity of women
gave them many opportunities to do many more things that were not
"normally" considered "women's work" of this era. After 1849, the
California Gold Rush continued for several years as the miners continued
to find about $50,000,000 worth of gold per year at $21 per ounce. Once California was established as a prosperous state, many thousands more emigrated there each year for the opportunities.
Later emigration and uses of the trail
The trail was still in use during the Civil War, but traffic declined after 1855 when the Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama
was completed. Paddle wheel steamships and sailing ships, often heavily
subsidized to carry the mail, provided rapid transport to and from the
east coast and New Orleans, Louisiana, to and from Panama to ports in California and Oregon.
Over the years many ferries were established to help get across
the many rivers on the path of the Oregon Trail. Multiple ferries were
established on the Missouri River, Kansas River, Little Blue River, Elkhorn River, Loup River, Platte River, South Platte River, North Platte River, Laramie River, Green River, Bear River, two crossings of the Snake River, John Day River, Deschutes River,
Columbia River, as well as many other smaller streams. During peak
immigration periods several ferries on any given river often competed
for pioneer dollars. These ferries significantly increased speed and
safety for Oregon Trail travelers. They increased the cost of traveling
the trail by roughly $30 per wagon but increased the speed of the
transit from about 160 to 170 days in 1843 to 120 to 140 days in 1860.
Ferries also helped prevent death by drowning at river crossings.
The Army improved the trail for use by wagons and stagecoaches in 1859 and 1860. Starting in 1860, the American Civil War closed the heavily subsidized Butterfield Overland Mail stage Southern Route through the deserts of the American Southwest.
In 1860–61 the Pony Express,
employing riders traveling on horseback day and night with relay
stations about every 10 miles (16 km) to supply fresh horses, was
established from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California.
The Pony Express built many of their eastern stations along the
Oregon/California/Mormon/Bozeman trails and many of their western
stations along the very sparsely settled Central Route across Utah and Nevada. The Pony Express delivered mail summer and winter in roughly 10 days from the midwest to California.
In 1861, John Butterfield,
who since 1858 had been using the Butterfield Overland Mail, also
switched to the Central Route to avoid traveling through hostile
territories during the American Civil War. George Chorpenning
immediately realized the value of this more direct route, and shifted
his existing mail and passenger line along with their stations from the
"Northern Route" (California Trail) along the Humboldt River. In 1861,
the First Transcontinental Telegraph
also laid its lines alongside the Central Overland Route. Several stage
lines were set up carrying mail and passengers that traversed much of
the route of the original Oregon Trail to Fort Bridger and from there
over the Central Overland Route to California. By traveling day and
night with many stations and changes of teams (and extensive mail
subsidies), these stages could get passengers and mail from the midwest
to California in about 25 to 28 days. These combined stage and Pony
Express stations along the Oregon Trail and Central Route across Utah
and Nevada were joined by the First Transcontinental Telegraph stations
and telegraph line, which followed much the same route in 1861 from Carson City, Nevada to Salt Lake City.
The Pony Express folded in 1861 as they failed to receive an expected
mail contract from the U.S. government and the telegraph filled the need
for rapid east–west communication. This combination
wagon/stagecoach/pony express/telegraph line route is labeled the Pony Express National Historic Trail on the National Trail Map. From Salt Lake City the telegraph line followed much of the Mormon/California/Oregon trails to Omaha, Nebraska.
After the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869,
telegraph lines usually followed the railroad tracks as the required
relay stations and telegraph lines were much easier to maintain
alongside the tracks. Telegraph lines to unpopulated areas were largely
abandoned.
As the years passed, the Oregon Trail became a heavily used
corridor from the Missouri River to the Columbia River. Offshoots of the
trail continued to grow as gold and silver discoveries, farming,
lumbering, ranching, and business opportunities resulted in much more
traffic to many areas. Traffic became two-directional as towns were
established along the trail. By 1870 the population in the states served
by the Oregon Trail and its offshoots increased by about 350,000 over
their 1860 census levels. With the exception of most of the 180,000
population increase in California, most of these people living away from
the coast traveled over parts of the Oregon Trail and its many
extensions and cutoffs to get to their new residences.
Even before the famous Texas cattle drives
after the Civil War, the trail was being used to drive herds of
thousands of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats from the midwest to
various towns and cities along the trails. According to studies by trail
historian John Unruh the livestock may have been as plentiful or more
plentiful than the immigrants in many years. In 1852, there were even records of a 1,500-turkey drive from Illinois to California.
The main reason for this livestock traffic was the large cost
discrepancy between livestock in the midwest and at the end of the trail
in California, Oregon, or Montana. They could often be bought in the
midwest for about 1/3 to 1/10 what they would fetch at the end of the
trail. Large losses could occur and the drovers would still make
significant profit. As the emigrant travel on the trail declined in
later years and after livestock ranches were established at many places
along the trail large herds of animals often were driven along part of
the trail to get to and from markets.
Trail decline
The
first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, providing
faster, safer, and usually cheaper travel east and west (the journey
took seven days and cost as little as $65, or $1189.39 in 2016 dollars).
Some emigrants continued to use the trail well into the 1890s, and
modern highways and railroads eventually paralleled large portions of
the trail, including U.S. Highway 26, Interstate 84 in Oregon and Idaho and Interstate 80
in Nebraska. Contemporary interest in the overland trek has prompted
the states and federal government to preserve landmarks on the trail
including wagon ruts, buildings, and "registers" where emigrants carved
their names. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries there have been a
number of re-enactments of the trek with participants wearing period
garments and traveling by wagon.
As the trail developed it became marked by many cutoffs and shortcuts
from Missouri to Oregon. The basic route follows river valleys as grass
and water were absolutely necessary.
While the first few parties organized and departed from Elm Grove, the Oregon Trail's primary starting point was Independence, Missouri, or Westport, (which was annexed into modern day Kansas City), on the Missouri River. Later, several feeder trails led across Kansas, and some towns became starting points, including Weston, Fort Leavenworth, Atchison, St. Joseph, and Omaha.
The Oregon Trail's nominal termination point was Oregon City, at the time the proposed capital of the Oregon Territory.
However, many settlers branched off or stopped short of this goal and
settled at convenient or promising locations along the trail. Commerce
with pioneers going further west helped establish these early
settlements and launched local economies critical to their prosperity.
At dangerous or difficult river crossings, ferries or toll
bridges were set up and bad places on the trail were either repaired or
bypassed. Several toll roads were constructed. Gradually the trail
became easier with the average trip (as recorded in numerous diaries)
dropping from about 160 days in 1849 to 140 days 10 years later.
Many other trails followed the Oregon Trail for much of its
length, including the Mormon Trail from Illinois to Utah; the California
Trail to the gold fields of California; and the Bozeman Trail to Montana.
Because it was more a network of trails than a single trail, there were
numerous variations with other trails eventually established on both
sides of the Platte, North Platte, Snake, and Columbia rivers. With
literally thousands of people and thousands of livestock traveling in a
fairly small time slot the travelers had to spread out to find clean
water, wood, good campsites, and grass. The dust kicked up by the many
travelers was a constant complaint, and where the terrain would allow it
there may have been between 20 and 50 wagons traveling abreast.
Initially, the main "jumping off point" was the common head of the Santa Fe Trail and Oregon trail—Independence, and Kansas City.
Travelers starting in Independence had to ferry across the Missouri
River. After following the Santa Fe trail to near present-day Topeka, they ferried across the Kansas River to start the trek across Kansas and points west. Another busy "jumping off point" was St. Joseph—established in 1843.
In its early days, St. Joseph was a bustling outpost and rough frontier
town, serving as one of the last supply points before heading over the
Missouri River to the frontier. St. Joseph had good steamboat
connections to St. Louis and other ports on the combined Ohio, Missouri,
and Mississippi River systems. During the busy season there were
several ferry boats and steamboats available to transport travelers to
the Kansas shore where they started their travels westward. Before the Union Pacific Railroad
was started in 1865, St. Joseph was the westernmost point in the United
States accessible by rail. Other towns used as supply points in
Missouri included Old Franklin, Arrow Rock, and Fort Osage.
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson obtained from France the Louisiana Purchase
for $15 million (equivalent to about $230 million today) which included
all the land drained by the Missouri River and roughly doubled the size
of U.S. territory. The future states of Iowa and Missouri, located west
of the Mississippi River and east of Missouri River, were part of this
purchase. The Lewis and Clark Expedition
stopped several times in the future state of Iowa on their 1805–1806
expedition to the west coast. A disputed 1804 treaty between Quashquame and William Henry Harrison (future ninth President of the U.S.) that surrendered much of the future state of Illinois to the U.S. enraged many Sauk (Sac) natives and led to the 1832 Black Hawk War.
As punishment for the uprising, and as part of a larger settlement
strategy, treaties were subsequently designed to remove all Native
Americans from Iowa Territory. Some settlers started drifting into Iowa in 1833. President Martin Van Buren
on July 4, 1838, signed the U.S. Congress laws establishing the
Territory of Iowa. Iowa was located opposite the junction of the Platte
and Missouri rivers and was used by some of the fur trapper rendezvous traders as a starting point for their supply expeditions. In 1846 the Mormons, expelled from Nauvoo, Illinois,
traversed Iowa (on part of the Mormon Trail) and settled temporarily in
significant numbers on the Missouri River in Iowa and the future state
of Nebraska at their Winter Quarters near the future city of Omaha, Nebraska. The Mormons established about 50 temporary towns including the town of Kanesville, Iowa (renamed Council Bluffs
in 1852) on the east bank of the Missouri River opposite the mouth of
the Platte River. For those travelers to Oregon, California, and Utah
who were bringing their teams to the Platte River junction Kanesville
and other towns became major "jumping off places" and supply points. In
1847 the Mormons established three ferries across the Missouri River and
others established even more ferries for the spring start on the trail.
In the 1850 census there were about 8,000 mostly Mormons tabulated in
the large Pottawattamie County, Iowa
District 21. (The original Pottawattamie County was subsequently made
into five counties and parts of several more.) By 1854 most of the
Mormon towns, farms and villages were largely taken over by non-Mormons
as they abandoned them or sold them for not much and continued their
migration to Utah. After 1846 the towns of Council Bluffs, Iowa, Omaha
(est. 1852) and other Missouri River towns became major supply points
and "jumping off places" for travelers on the Mormon, California,
Oregon, and other trails west.
Kansas
Map of principal rivers in Kansas
Starting initially in Independence, Missouri, or Kansas City in Missouri, the initial trail follows the Santa Fe Trail into Kansas south of the Wakarusa River. After crossing Mount Oread at Lawrence, the trail crosses the Kansas River by ferry
or boats near Topeka and crossed the Wakarusa and Black Vermillion
rivers by ferries. West of Topeka, the route paralleled what is now U.S. Route 24 until west of St. Mary's. After the Black Vermillion River the trail angles northwest to Nebraska paralleling the Little Blue River until reaching the south side of the Platte River. Destinations along the Oregon Trail in Kansas included St. Mary's Mission, Pottawatomie Indian Pay Station, Vieux's Vermilion Crossing, Alcove Springs and Hollenberg Station.
Travel by wagon over the gently rolling Kansas countryside was usually
unimpeded except where streams had cut steep banks. There a passage
could be made with a lot of shovel work to cut down the banks or the
travelers could find an already established crossing.
Those emigrants on the eastern side of the Missouri River in Missouri
or Iowa used ferries and steamboats (fitted out for ferry duty) to
cross into towns in Nebraska. Several towns in Nebraska were used as jumping off places with Omaha eventually becoming a favorite after about 1855. Fort Kearny
(est. 1848) is about 200 miles (320 km) from the Missouri River, and
the trail and its many offshoots nearly all converged close to Fort
Kearny as they followed the Platte River west. The army maintained fort
was the first chance on the trail to buy emergency supplies, do repairs,
get medical aid, or mail a letter. Those on the north side of the
Platte could usually wade the shallow river if they needed to visit the
fort.
Map showing the Platte River watershed, including the North Platte and South Platte tributaries
The Platte River and the North Platte River in the future states of
Nebraska and Wyoming typically had many channels and islands and were
too shallow, crooked, muddy and unpredictable for travel even by canoe.
The Platte as it pursued its braided paths to the Missouri River was
"too thin to plow and too thick to drink". While unusable for
transportation, the Platte River and North Platte River valleys provided
an easily passable wagon corridor going almost due west with access to
water, grass, buffalo, and buffalo chips for fuel.
The trails gradually got rougher as it progressed up the North Platte.
There were trails on both sides of the muddy rivers. The Platte was
about 1 mile (1.6 km) wide and 2 to 60 inches (5.1 to 152.4 cm) deep.
The water was silty and bad tasting but it could be used if no other
water was available. Letting it sit in a bucket for an hour or so or
stirring in a 1/4 cup of cornmeal allowed most of the silt to settle
out.
In the spring in Nebraska and Wyoming the travelers often
encountered fierce wind, rain and lightning storms. Until about 1870
travelers encountered hundreds of thousands of bison
migrating through Nebraska on both sides of the Platte River, and most
travelers killed several for fresh meat and to build up their supplies
of dried jerky
for the rest of the journey. The prairie grass in many places was
several feet high with only the hat of a traveler on horseback showing
as they passed through the prairie grass. In many years the Native
Americans fired much of the dry grass on the prairie every fall so the
only trees or bushes available for firewood were on islands in the
Platte River. Travelers gathered and ignited dried cow dung to cook
their meals. These burned fast in a breeze, and it could take two or
more bushels of chips to get one meal prepared. Those traveling south of
the Platte crossed the South Platte fork at one of about three ferries
(in dry years it could be forded without a ferry) before continuing up
the North Platte River Valley into present-day Wyoming heading to Fort
Laramie. Before 1852 those on the north side of the Platte crossed the
North Platte to the south side at Fort Laramie. After 1852 they used
Child's Cutoff to stay on the north side to about the present day town
of Casper, Wyoming, where they crossed over to the south side.
Today much of the Oregon Trail follows roughly along Interstate 80 from Wyoming to Grand Island, Nebraska. From there U.S. Highway 30
which follows the Platte River is a better approximate path for those
traveling the north side of the Platte. The National Park Service (NPS)
gives traveling advice for those who want to follow other branches of
the trail.
Cholera on the Platte River
Because of the Platte's brackish water, the preferred camping spots
were along one of the many fresh water streams draining into the Platte
or the occasional fresh water spring found along the way. These
preferred camping spots became sources of cholera in the epidemic years
(1849–1855) as many thousands of people used the same camping spots with
essentially no sewage facilities or adequate sewage treatment. One of
the side effects of cholera is acute diarrhea, which helps contaminate
even more water unless it is isolated and/or treated. The cause of
cholera (ingesting the Vibrio cholerae
bacterium from contaminated water) and the best treatment for cholera
infections were unknown in this era. Thousands of travelers on the
combined California, Oregon, and Mormon trails succumbed to cholera
between 1849 and 1855. Most were buried in unmarked graves in Kansas,
Nebraska and Wyoming. Although also considered part of the Mormon Trail, the grave of Rebecca Winters
is one of the few marked ones left. There are many cases cited
involving people who were alive and apparently healthy in the morning
and dead by nightfall.
Colorado
A branch of the Oregon trail crossed the very northeast corner of Colorado if they followed the South Platte River to one of its last crossings. This branch of the trail passed through present day Julesburg
before entering Wyoming. Later settlers followed the Platte and South
Platte Rivers into their settlements there (much of which became the
state of Colorado).
Wyoming
After crossing the South Platte River the Oregon Trail follows the North Platte River out of Nebraska into Wyoming. Fort Laramie,
at the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte rivers, was a major
stopping point. Fort Laramie was a former fur trading outpost originally
named Fort John that was purchased in 1848 by the U.S. Army to protect
travelers on the trails. It was the last army outpost till travelers reached the coast.
Fort Laramie was the end of most cholera outbreaks which killed
thousands along the lower Platte and North Platte from 1849 to 1855.
Spread by cholera bacteria in fecal contaminated water, cholera caused
massive diarrhea, leading to dehydration and death. In those days its
cause and treatment were unknown, and it was often fatal—up to
30 percent of infected people died. It is believed that the swifter
flowing rivers in Wyoming helped prevent the germs from spreading.
Independence Rock
After crossing the South Platte the trail continues up the North
Platte River, crossing many small swift-flowing creeks. As the North
Platte veers to the south, the trail crosses the North Platte to the
Sweetwater River Valley, which heads almost due west. Independence Rock is on the Sweetwater River. The Sweetwater would have to be crossed up to nine times before the trail crosses over the Continental Divide at South Pass, Wyoming. From South Pass the trail continues southwest crossing Big Sandy Creek—about
10 feet (3.0 m) wide and 1 foot (0.30 m) deep—before hitting the Green
River. Three to five ferries were in use on the Green during peak travel
periods. The deep, wide, swift, and treacherous Green River which
eventually empties into the Colorado River, was usually at high water in
July and August, and it was a dangerous crossing. After crossing the
Green, the main trail continued approximately southwest until the Blacks Fork of the Green River and Fort Bridger. From Fort Bridger the Mormon Trail continued southwest following the upgraded Hastings Cutoff through the Wasatch Mountains.
From Fort Bridger, the main trail, comprising several variants, veered
northwest over the Bear River Divide and descended to the Bear River
Valley. The trail turned north following the Bear River past the
terminus of the Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff at Smiths Fork and on to the Thomas Fork Valley at the present Wyoming–Idaho border.
Over time, two major heavily used cutoffs were established in
Wyoming. The Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff was established in 1844 and cut
about 70 miles (110 km) off the main route. It leaves the main trail
about 10 miles (16 km) west of South Pass and heads almost due west
crossing Big Sandy Creek and then about 45 miles (72 km) 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.
Prairie Scene: Mirage, by Alfred Jacob Miller
The Lander Road,
formally the Fort Kearney, South Pass, and Honey Lake Wagon Road, was
established and built by U.S. government contractors in 1858–59.
It was about 80 miles (130 km) shorter than the main trail through Fort
Bridger with good grass, water, firewood and fishing but it was a much
steeper and rougher route, crossing three mountain ranges. In 1859,
13,000 of the 19,000 emigrants traveling to California and Oregon used the Lander Road. The traffic in later years is undocumented.
The Lander Road departs the main trail at Burnt Ranch near South
Pass, crosses the Continental Divide north of South Pass and reaches the
Green River near the present town of Big Piney, Wyoming. From there the
trail followed Big Piney Creek west before passing over the 8,800 feet
(2,700 m) Thompson Pass in the Wyoming Range. It then crosses over the Smith Fork of the Bear River before ascending and crossing another 8,200-foot (2,500 m) pass on the Salt River Range of mountains and then descending into Star Valley. It exited the mountains near the present Smith Fork road about 6 miles (9.7 km) south of the town of Smoot.
The road continued almost due north along the present day Wyoming–Idaho
western border through Star Valley. To avoid crossing the Salt River
(which drains into the Snake River) which runs down Star Valley the
Lander Road crossed the river when it was small and stayed west of the
Salt River. After traveling down the Salt River Valley (Star Valley)
about 20 miles (32 km) north the road turned almost due west near the
present town of Auburn,
and entered into the present state of Idaho along Stump Creek. In
Idaho, it followed the Stump Creek valley northwest until it crossed the
Caribou Mountains
and proceeded past the south end of Grays Lake. The trail then
proceeded almost due west to meet the main trail at Fort Hall;
alternatively, a branch trail headed almost due south to meet the main
trail near the present town of Soda Springs.
In 1847,
Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers departed from the Oregon Trail at
Fort Bridger in Wyoming and followed (and much improved) the rough trail
originally recommended by Lansford Hastings to the Donner Party in 1846 through the Wasatch Mountains into Utah.
After getting into Utah, they immediately started setting up irrigated
farms and cities—including Salt Lake City. In 1848, the Salt Lake Cutoff
was established by Sam Hensley, and returning members of the Mormon Battalion providing a path north of the Great Salt Lake
from Salt Lake City back to the California and Oregon trails. This
cutoff rejoined the Oregon and California Trails near the City of Rocks
near the Utah–Idaho border and could be used by both California and
Oregon bound travelers. Located about half way on both the California
and Oregon trails many thousands of later travelers used Salt Lake City
and other Utah cities as an intermediate stop for selling or trading
excess goods or tired livestock for fresh livestock, repairs, supplies
or fresh vegetables. The Mormons looked on these travelers as a welcome
bonanza as setting up new communities from scratch required nearly
everything the travelers could afford to part with. The overall distance
to California or Oregon was very close to the same whether one
"detoured" to Salt Lake City or not. For their own use and to encourage
California and Oregon bound travelers the Mormons improved the Mormon
Trail from Fort Bridger and the Salt Lake Cutoff trail. To raise much
needed money and facilitate travel on the Salt Lake Cutoff they set up
several ferries across the Weber, Bear, and Malad rivers, which were used mostly by travelers bound for Oregon or California.
Idaho
The main Oregon and California Trail went almost due north from Fort
Bridger to the Little Muddy Creek where it passed over the Bear River
Mountains to the Bear River Valley, which it followed northwest into the
Thomas Fork area, where the trail crossed over the present day Wyoming
line into Idaho. In the Eastern Sheep Creek Hills in the Thomas Fork
valley the emigrants encountered Big Hill. Big Hill was a detour caused
by a then-impassable cut the Bear River made through the mountains and
had a tough ascent often requiring doubling up of teams and a very steep
and dangerous descent. (Much later, US-30,
using modern explosives and equipment, was built through this cut). In
1852 Eliza Ann McAuley found and with help developed the McAuley Cutoff
which bypassed much of the difficult climb and descent of Big Hill.
About 5 miles (8.0 km) on they passed present-day Montpelier, Idaho, which is now the site of the National Oregon-California Trail Center.
The trail follows the Bear River northwest to present-day Soda Springs.
The springs here were a favorite attraction of the pioneers who
marveled at the hot carbonated water and chugging "steamboat" springs.
Many stopped and did their laundry in the hot water as there was usually
plenty of good grass and fresh water available.
Just west of Soda Springs the Bear River turns southwest as it heads
for the Great Salt Lake, and the main trail turns northwest to follow
the Portneuf River
valley to Fort Hall, Idaho. Fort Hall was an old fur trading post
located on the Snake River. It was established in 1832 by Nathaniel
Jarvis Wyeth and company and later sold in 1837 to the Hudson's Bay
Company. At Fort Hall nearly all travelers were given some aid and
supplies if they were available and needed. Mosquitoes were constant
pests, and travelers often mention that their animals were covered with
blood from the bites. The route from Fort Bridger to Fort Hall is about
210 miles (340 km), taking nine to twelve days.
Storm: Waiting for the Caravan, by Alfred Jacob Miller
At Soda Springs was one branch of Lander Road
(established and built with government contractors in 1858), which had
gone west from near South Pass, over the Salt River Mountains and down
Star Valley before turning west near present-day Auburn, Wyoming, and
entering Idaho. From there it proceeded northwest into Idaho up Stump
Creek canyon for about 10 miles (16 km). One branch turned almost 90
degrees and proceeded southwest to Soda Springs. Another branch headed
almost due west past Gray's Lake to rejoin the main trail about 10 miles
(16 km) west of Fort Hall.
On the main trail about 5 miles (8.0 km) west of Soda Springs
Hudspeth's Cutoff (established 1849 and used mostly by California trail
users) took off from the main trail heading almost due west, bypassing
Fort Hall. It rejoined the California Trail at Cassia Creek near the
City of Rocks.
Hudspeth's Cutoff had five mountain ranges to cross and took about the
same amount of time as the main route to Fort Hall, but many took it
thinking it was shorter. Its main advantage was that it helped spread
out the traffic during peak periods, making more grass available.
West of Fort Hall the main trail traveled about 40 miles (64 km)
on the south side of the Snake River southwest past American Falls, Massacre Rocks, Register Rock, and Coldwater Hill near present-day Pocatello, Idaho. Near the junction of the Raft River
and Snake River the California Trail diverged from the Oregon Trail at
another Parting of the Ways junction. Travellers left the Snake River
and followed Raft River about 65 miles (105 km) southwest past present
day Almo.
This trail then passed through the City of Rocks and over Granite Pass
where it went southwest along Goose Creek, Little Goose Creek, and Rock
Spring Creek. It went about 95 miles (153 km) through Thousand Springs Valley, West Brush Creek, and Willow Creek, before arriving at the Humboldt River in northeastern Nevada near present-day Wells. The California Trail proceeded west down the Humboldt before reaching and crossing the Sierra Nevadas.
Goodale's
Cutoff of the Oregon Trail at Lava Lake, west of Arco, ID and east of
Carey, ID along US 26, 20, 93. Picture of current two track along
section of the cutoff of the Oregon Trail.
There were only a few places where the Snake River was not buried
deep in a canyon, and few spots where the river slowed down enough to
make a crossing possible. Two of these fords were near Fort Hall, where
travelers on the Oregon Trail North Side Alternate (established about
1852) and Goodale's Cutoff (established 1862) crossed the Snake to
travel on the north side. Nathaniel Wyeth, the original founder of Fort
Hall in 1834, writes in his diary that they found a ford across the
Snake River 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of where he founded Fort Hall.
Another possible crossing was a few miles upstream of Salmon Falls where
some intrepid travelers floated their wagons and swam their stock
across to join the north side trail. Some lost their wagons and teams
over the falls. The trails on the north side joined the trail from Three Island Crossing about 17 miles (27 km) west of Glenns Ferry on the north side of the Snake River.
Goodale's Cutoff,
established in 1862 on the north side of the Snake River, formed a spur
of the Oregon Trail. This cutoff had been used as a pack trail by
Native Americans and fur traders, and emigrant wagons traversed parts of
the eastern section as early as 1852. After crossing the Snake River
the 230-mile (370 km) cutoff headed north from Fort Hall toward Big
Southern Butte following the Lost River part of the way. It passed near the present-day town of Arco, Idaho, and wound through the northern part of what is now Craters of the Moon National Monument. From there it went southwest to Camas Prairie and ended at Old Fort Boise on the Boise River.
This journey typically took two to three weeks and was noted for its
very rough lava terrain and extremely dry climate, which tended to dry
the wooden wheels on the wagons, causing the iron rims to fall off the
wheels. Loss of wheels caused many wagons to be abandoned along the
route. It rejoined the main trail east of Boise. Goodale's Cutoff is
visible at many points along US-20, US-26, and US-93 between Craters of the Moon National Monument and Carey.
From the present site of Pocatello, the trail proceeded almost due
west on the south side of the Snake River for about 180 miles (290 km).
This route passed Cauldron Linn rapids, Shoshone Falls, two falls near the present city of Twin Falls,
and Upper Salmon Falls on the Snake River. At Salmon Falls there were
often a hundred or more Native Americans fishing who would trade for
their salmon, a welcome treat.
The trail continued west to Three Island Crossing (near present-day Glenns Ferry.)
Here most emigrants used the divisions of the river caused by three
islands to cross the difficult and swift Snake River by ferry or by
driving or sometimes floating their wagons and swimming their teams
across. The crossings were doubly treacherous because there were often
hidden holes in the river bottom which could overturn the wagon or
entangle the team, sometimes with fatal consequences. Before ferries
were established there were several drownings here nearly every year.
The north side of the Snake had better water and grass than the
south. The trail from Three Island Crossing to Old Fort Boise was about
130 miles (210 km) long. The usually lush Boise River Valley was a
welcome relief. The next crossing of the Snake River was near Old Fort
Boise. This last crossing of the Snake could be done on bull boats while
swimming the stock across. Others would chain a large string of wagons
and teams together. The theory was that the front teams, usually oxen,
would get out of water first and with good footing help pull the whole
string of wagons and teams across. How well this worked in practice is
not stated. Often young Native American boys were hired to drive and
ride the stock across the river—they knew how to swim, unlike many
pioneers. In present-day Idaho, I-84
roughly follows the Oregon Trail from the Idaho-Oregon State border at
the Snake River. Approximately seven miles (11 km) east of Declo in present-day rural Cassia County, I-84 meets the western terminus of the western section of I-86. I-86 heads east, then northeast to American Falls and Pocatello following the Oregon Trail, while I-84 heads southeast to the State border with Utah. US-30 roughly follows the path of the Oregon Trail from Pocatello to Montpelier.
Starting in about 1848 the South Alternate of Oregon Trail (also
called the Snake River Cutoff) was developed as a spur off the main
trail. It bypassed the Three Island Crossing and continued traveling
down the south side of the Snake River. It rejoined the trail near
present-day Ontario, Oregon.
It hugged the southern edge of the Snake River canyon and was a much
rougher trail with poorer water and grass, requiring occasional steep
descents and ascents with the animals down into the Snake River canyon
to get water. Travellers on this route avoided two dangerous crossings
of the Snake River. In present-day Idaho, the state highway ID-78 roughly follows the path of the South Alternate route of the Oregon Trail.
In 1869, the Central Pacific established Kelton, Utah
as a railhead and the terminus of the western mail was moved from Salt
Lake City. The Kelton Road became important as a communication and
transportation road to the Boise Basin.
Boise has 21 monuments in the shape of obelisks along its portion of the Oregon Trail.[79]
Once across the Snake River ford near Old Fort Boise the weary
travelers traveled across what would become the state of Oregon. The
trail then went to the Malheur River and then past Farewell Bend on the Snake River, up the Burnt River canyon and northwest to the Grande Ronde Valley near present-day La Grande
before coming to the Blue Mountains. In 1843 settlers cut a wagon road
over these mountains making them passable for the first time to wagons.
The trail went to the Whitman Mission near Fort Nez Perces in Washington until 1847 when the Whitmans were killed by Native Americans.
At Fort Nez Perce some built rafts or hired boats and started down the
Columbia; others continued west in their wagons until they reached The
Dalles. After 1847 the trail bypassed the closed mission and headed
almost due west to present-day Pendleton, Oregon, crossing the Umatilla River,
John Day River, and Deschutes River before arriving at The Dalles.
Interstate 84 in Oregon roughly follows the original Oregon Trail from
Idaho to The Dalles.
Arriving at the Columbia at The Dalles and stopped by the Cascade Mountains
and Mount Hood, some gave up their wagons or disassembled them and put
them on boats or rafts for a trip down the Columbia River. Once they
transited the Cascade's Columbia River Gorge with its multiple rapids and treacherous winds they would have to make the 1.6-mile (2.6 km) portage around the Cascade Rapids before coming out near the Willamette River
where Oregon City was located. The pioneer's livestock could be driven
around Mount Hood on the narrow, crooked and rough Lolo Pass.
Several Oregon Trail branches and route variations led to the
Willamette Valley. The most popular was the Barlow Road, which was
carved through the forest around Mount Hood from The Dalles in 1846 as a
toll road at $5 per wagon and 10 cents per head of livestock. It was
rough and steep with poor grass but still cheaper and safer than
floating goods, wagons and family down the dangerous Columbia River.
In Central Oregon, there was the Santiam Wagon Road (established 1861), which roughly parallels Oregon Highway 20 to the Willamette Valley. The Applegate Trail
(established 1846), cutting off the California Trail from the Humboldt
River in Nevada, crossed part of California before cutting north to the
south end of the Willamette Valley. U.S. Route 99 and Interstate 5 through Oregon roughly follow the original Applegate Trail.
By 1842, many emigrants favored oxen—castrated bulls (males) of the genus Bos
(cattle), generally over four years old—as the best animal to pull
wagons, because they were docile, generally healthy, and able to
continue moving in difficult conditions such as mud and snow. Oxen could also survive on prairie grasses and sage, unlike horses, who had to be fed. Moreover, oxen were less expensive to purchase and maintain than horses. Oxen also could stand idle for long periods without suffering damage to the feet and legs. Oxen were trained by leading, the use of a whip or goad, and the use of oral commands (such as "Gee" (right), "Haw" (left), and "Whoa" (stop)).
Two oxen were typically yoked together at the neck or head; the left ox
was referred to as the "near" or "nigh" ox, and the right ox as the
"off" ox. While no reins, bits, or halters were needed, the trainer had to be forceful. Oxen typically traveled at a steady pace up to two miles an hour.
One drawback of oxen was the difficulty of shoeing. Oxen hooves are cloven
(split), and they had to be shod with two curved pieces of metal, one
on each side of the hoof. While horses and mules allowed themselves to
be shod relatively easily, the process was more difficult with oxen,
which would lie down and tuck their feet under themselves. As a result, several men had to lift and hold an ox while he was being shod.
Mules were used by some emigrants. The competing merits of oxen and mules were hotly debated among emigrants. Some found oxen to be more durable.
Others, by contrast, believed that mules were more durable, and mules
may have had a lower attrition rate on the trail than oxen. Like oxen, mules could survive on prairie grasses. Mules were, however, notoriously ill-tempered. Mules also cost about three times as much as oxen, a deciding factor for many emigrants.
Covered wagon ("prairie schooners"), lighter than a Conestoga and often just a covered farm wagon.
Studebaker
Food
The typical cost of food for four people for six months was about $150.
Food and water were key concerns for migrants. Wagons typically carried at least one large water keg,
and guidebooks available from the 1840s and later gave similar advice
to migrants on what food to take. T. H. Jefferson, in his Brief Practice Advice
guidebook for migrants, recommended that each adult take 200 pounds of
flour: "Take plenty of bread stuff; this is the staff of life when
everything else runs short."
Food often took the form of crackers or hardtack; Southerners sometimes chose cornmeal or pinole rather than wheat flour. Emigrants typically ate rice and beans only at forts stopped at along the way, because boiling water was difficult on the trail, and fuel was not abundant. Lansford Hastings recommended that each emigrant take 200 pounds of flour, 150 pounds of "bacon" (a word which, at the time, referred broadly to all forms of salt pork), 20 pounds of sugar, and 10 pounds of salt. Chipped beef, rice, tea, dried beans, dried fruit, saleratus (for raising bread), vinegar, pickles, mustard, and tallow might also be taken.
Joseph Ware's 1849 guide recommends that travelers take for each
individual a barrel of flour or 180 pounds of ship's biscuit (i.e.,
hardtack), 150–180 pounds of bacon, 60 pounds of beans or peas, 25 pounds of rice, 25 pounds of coffee, 40 pounds of sugar, a keg of lard, 30 or 40 pounds of dried fruit (peaches or apples), a keg of clear, rendered beef suet (to substitute for butter), as well as some vinegar, salt, and pepper. Many emigrant families also carried a small amount of tea and maple sugar.
Randolph B. Marcy,
an Army officer who wrote an 1859 guide, advised taking less bacon than
the earlier guides had recommended. He advised emigrants to drive
cattle instead as a source of fresh beef. Marcy also instructed emigrants to store sides of bacon in canvas bags or in boxes surrounded by bran to protect against extreme heat, which could make bacon go rancid. Marcy instructed emigrants to put salt pork on the bottom of wagons to avoid exposure to extreme heat. Marcy also recommended the use of pemmican, as well as the storage of sugar in India-rubber or gutta-percha sacks, to prevent it from becoming wet.
Canning
technology had just begun to be developed, and it gained in popularity
through the period of westward expansion. Initially, only upper-class
migrants typically used canned goods. There are references in sources to canned cheese, fruit, meat, oysters, and sardines.
By the time Marcy wrote his 1859 guide, canned foods were increasingly
available but remained expensive. Canning also added weight to a wagon.
Rather than canned vegetables, Marcy suggested that travelers take dried
vegetables, which had been used in the Crimean War and by the U.S. Army.
Some pioneers took eggs and butter packed in barrels of flour, and some took dairy cows along the trail. Hunting provided another source of food along the trail; pioneers hunted American bison as well as pronghorn antelope, deer, bighorn sheep, and wildfowl. From rivers and lakes, emigrants also fished for catfish and trout. When emigrants faced starvation, they would sometimes slaughter their animals (horses, mules, and oxen). In desperate times, migrants would search for less-popular sources of food, including coyote, fox, jackrabbit, marmot, prairie dog, and rattlesnake (nicknamed "bush fish" in the later period).
At the time, scurvy was well-recognized, but there was a lack of clear understanding of how to prevent the disease. Nevertheless, pioneers' consumption of the wild berries (including chokeberry, gooseberry, and serviceberry) and currants that grew along the trail (particularly along the Platte River) helped make scurvy infrequent.
Marcy's guide correctly suggested that the consumption of wild grapes,
greens, and onions could help prevent the disease and that if vegetables
were not available, citric acid could be drunk with sugar and water.
Emigrant families, who were mostly middle-class, prided themselves on preparing a good table. Although operating Dutch ovens and kneading dough was difficult on the trail, many baked good bread and even pies.
For fuel to heat food, travelers would collect cedar wood, cottonwood, or willow wood, when available, and sometimes dry prairie grass. More frequently, however, travelers relied on "buffalo chips"—dried bison dung—to fuel fires. Buffalo chips resembled rotten wood and would make clear and hot fires. Chips burned quickly, however, and it took up to three bushels of chips to heat a single meal. Collecting buffalo chips was a common task for children and was one chore that even very young children could carry out.
As a result, "memoirs written by those who were very young when they
made the journey west invariably refer to this aspect of life on the
trail."
Clothing, equipment and supplies
Tobacco
was popular, both for personal use, and for trading with natives and
other pioneers. Each person brought at least two changes of clothes and
multiple pairs of boots (two to three pairs often wore out on the trip).
About 25 pounds of soap was recommended for a party of four, for
bathing and washing clothes. A washboard and tub were usually brought
for washing clothes. Wash days typically occurred once or twice a month,
or less, depending on availability of good grass, water, and fuel.
Most wagons carried tents for sleeping, though in good weather
most would sleep outside. A thin fold-up mattress, blankets, pillows,
canvas, or rubber gutta percha ground covers were used for sleeping.
Sometimes an unfolded feather bed mattress was brought for the wagon, if
there were pregnant women or very young children along. Storage boxes
were ideally the same height, so they could be arranged to give a flat
surface inside the wagon for a sleeping platform.
The wagons had no springs, and the ride along the trail was very
rough. Despite modern depictions, hardly anyone actually rode in the
wagons; it was too dusty, too rough, and too hard on the livestock.
Travelers brought books, Bibles, trail guides, and writing quills,
ink, and paper for writing letters or journalling (about one in 200 kept
a diary).
A belt and folding knives were carried by nearly all men and
boys. Awls, scissors, pins, needles, and thread for mending were
required. Spare leather was used for repairing shoes, harnesses, and
other equipment. Some used goggles to keep dust out of the eyes.
Saddles, bridles, hobbles, and ropes were needed if the party had
a horse or riding mule, and many men did. Extra harnesses and spare
wagon parts were often carried. Most carried steel shoes for horses,
mules, or livestock. Tar was carried to help repair an ox's injured
hoof.
Goods, supplies, and equipment were often shared by fellow travelers.
Items that were forgotten, broken, or worn out could be bought from a
fellow traveler, post, or fort along the way. New iron shoes for horses,
mules, and oxen were put on by blacksmiths found along the way.
Equipment repairs and other goods could be procured from blacksmith
shops established at some forts and some ferries. Emergency supplies,
repairs, and livestock were often provided by local residents in
California, Oregon, and Utah for late travelers on the trail who were
hurrying to beat the snow.
Non-essential items were often abandoned to lighten the load, or
in case of emergency. Many travelers would salvage discarded items,
picking up essentials or leaving behind their lower quality item when a
better one was found abandoned along the road. Some profited by
collecting discarded items, hauling them back to jumping off places, and
reselling them. In the early years, Mormons sent scavenging parties
back along the trail to salvage as much iron and other supplies as
possible and haul it to Salt Lake City, where supplies of all kinds were
needed. Others would use discarded furniture, wagons, and wheels as firewood. During the 1849 gold rush, Fort Laramie was known as "Camp Sacrifice" because of the large amounts merchandise discarded nearby.
Travelers had pushed along the relatively easy path to Fort Laramie
with their luxury items but discarded them before the difficult mountain
crossing ahead, and after discovering that many items could be
purchased at the forts or located for free along the way. Some travelers
carried their excess goods to Salt Lake City to be sold.
Professional tools used by blacksmiths, carpenters, and farmers
were carried by nearly all. Axes, crow bars, hammers, hatchets, hoes,
mallets, mattocks, picks, planes, saws, scythes, and shovels
were used to clear or make a road through brush or trees, cut down the
banks to cross a wash or steep banked stream, build a raft or bridge, or
repair the wagon. In general, as little road work as possible was done.
Travel was often along the top of ridges to avoid the brush and washes
common in many valleys.
Statistics
Overall, some 268,000 pioneers used the Oregon Trail and its three primary offshoots, the Bozeman, California, and Mormon
trails, to reach the West Coast, 1840–1860. Another 48,000 headed to
Utah. There is no estimate on how many used it to return East.
Emigrants
Estimated California Oregon Mormon Trail Emigrants
Year
Oregon
California
Utah
Total
1834–39
20
−
−
20
1840
13
−
−
13
1841
24
34
−
58
1842
125
−
−
125
1843
875
38
−
913
1844
1,475
53
−
1,528
1845
2,500
260
−
2,760
1846
1,200
1,500
−
2,700
1847
4,000
450
2,200
6,650
1848
1,300
400
2,400
4,100
Total
11,512
2,735
4,600
18,847
1849
450
25,000
1,500
26,950
1850
6,000
44,000
2,500
52,500
1851
3,600
1,100
1,500
6,200
1852
10,000
50,000
10,000
70,000
1853
7,500
20,000
8,000
35,500
1854
6,000
12,000
3,200
21,200
1855
500
1,500
4,700
6,700
1856
1,000
8,000
2,400
11,400
1857
1,500
4,000
1,300
6,800
1858
1,500
6,000
150
7,650
1859
2,000
17,000
1,400
20,400
1860
1,500
9,000
1,600
12,100
Total
53,000
200,300
43,000
296,300
1834–60
Oregon
California
Utah
Total
1861
−
−
3,148
5,000
1862
−
−
5,244
5,000
1863
−
−
4,760
10,000
1864
−
−
2,626
10,000
1865
−
−
690
20,000
1866
−
−
3,299
25,000
1867
−
−
700
25,000
1868
−
−
4,285
25,000
Total
80,000
250,000
70,000
400,000
1834–67
Oregon
California
Utah
Total
Some of the trail statistics for the early years were recorded by the U.S. Army at Fort Laramie, Wyoming,
from about 1849 to 1855. None of these original statistical records
have been found—the Army either lost them or destroyed them. Only some
partial written copies of the Army records and notes recorded in several
diaries have survived.
Emigration to California spiked considerably with the 1849 gold rush.
Following the discovery of gold, California remained the destination of
choice for most emigrants on the trail up to 1860, with almost 200,000
people traveling there between 1849 and 1860.
Travel diminished after 1860, as the Civil War
caused considerable disruptions on the trail. Many of the people on the
trail in 1861–1863 were fleeing the war and its attendant drafts in
both the south and the north. Trail historian Merrill J. Mattes
has estimated the number of emigrants for 1861–1867 given in the total
column of the above table. But these estimates may well be low since
they only amount to an extra 125,000 people, and the 1870 census shows
that over 200,000 additional people (ignoring most of the population
increase in California, which had excellent sea and rail connections
across Panama by then) showed up in all the states served by the
Bozeman, California, Mormon, and Oregon Trail(s) and their offshoots.
Mormon emigration records after 1860 are reasonably accurate, as
newspaper and other accounts in Salt Lake City give most of the names of
emigrants arriving each year from 1847 to 1868.
Gold and silver strikes in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, and Oregon
caused a considerable increase in people using the trails, often in
directions different from the original trail users.
Though the numbers are significant in the context of the times,
far more people chose to remain at home in the 31 states. Between 1840
and 1860, the population of the United States rose by 14 million, yet
only about 300,000 decided to make the trip. Many were discouraged by
the cost, effort and danger of the trip. Western scout Kit Carson is
thought to have said, "The cowards never started and the weak died on
the way", though the general saying was written by Joaquin Miller, in reference to the California gold rush. According to several sources, 3 to 10 percent of the emigrants are estimated to have perished on the way west.
Many who went were between the ages 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.
Western census data
Census Population of western States
State
1870
1860
Difference
California
560,247
379,994
180,253
Nevada
42,491
6,857
35,634
Oregon
90,923
52,465
38,458
Colorado
39,684
34,277
5,407
Idaho
14,990
−
14,990
Montana
20,595
−
20,595
Utah
86,789
40,273
46,516
Washington
23,955
11,594
12,361
Wyoming
9,118
−
9,118
Totals
888,792
525,460
363,332
These census numbers show a 363,000 population increase in the
western states and territories between 1860 and 1870. Some of this
increase is because of a high birth rate in the western states and
territories, but most is from emigrants moving from the east to the west
and new immigration from Europe. Much of the increase in California and
Oregon is from emigration by ship, as there was fast and reasonably low
cost transportation via east and west coast steamships and the Panama
Railroad after 1855. The census numbers imply at least 200,000 emigrants
(or more) used some variation of the California/Oregon/Mormon/Bozeman
trails to get to their new homes between 1860 and 1870.
Costs
The cost of
traveling over the Oregon Trail and its extensions varied from nothing
to a few hundred dollars per person. Women seldom went alone. The
cheapest way was to hire on to help drive the wagons or herds, allowing
one to make the trip for nearly nothing or even make a small profit.
Those with capital could often buy livestock in the Midwest
and drive the stock to California or Oregon for profit. About 60 to
80 percent of the travelers were farmers and as such already owned a
wagon, livestock team, and many of the necessary supplies. This lowered
the cost of the trip to about $50 per person for food and other items.
Families planned the trip months in advance and made much of the extra
clothing and many other items needed. Individuals buying most of the
needed items would end up spending between $150–$200 per person. As the trail matured, additional costs for ferries and toll roads were thought to have been about $30 per wagon.
The route west was arduous and fraught with many dangers, but the
number of deaths on the trail is not known with any precision; there are
only wildly varying estimates. Estimating is difficult because of the
common practice of burying people in unmarked graves that were
intentionally disguised to avoid their being dug up by animals or
natives. Graves were often put in the middle of a trail and then run
over by the livestock to make them difficult to find. Disease was the
main killer of trail travelers; cholera killed up to 3 percent of all travelers in the epidemic years from 1849 to 1855.
Native attacks increased significantly after 1860, when most of
the army troops were withdrawn, and miners and ranchers began fanning
out all over the country, often encroaching on Native American
territory. Increased attacks along the Humboldt led to most travelers'
taking the Central Nevada Route. The Goodall cutoff, developed in Idaho in 1862, kept Oregon bound travelers away from much of the native trouble nearer the Snake River. Other trails were developed that traveled further along the South Platte to avoid local Native American hot spots.
Other common causes of death included hypothermia,
drowning in river crossings, getting run over by wagons, and accidental
gun deaths. Later, more family groups started traveling, and many more
bridges and ferries were being put in, so fording a dangerous river
became much less common and dangerous. Surprisingly few people were
taught to swim in this era. Being run over was a major cause of death,
despite the wagons' only averaging 2–3 miles per hour. The wagons could
not easily be stopped, and people, particularly children, were often
trying to get on and off the wagons while they were moving—not always
successfully. Another hazard was a dress getting caught in the wheels
and pulling the person under. Accidental shootings declined
significantly after Fort Laramie, as people became more familiar with
their weapons and often just left them in their wagons. Carrying around a
ten-pound rifle all day soon became tedious and usually unnecessary, as
the perceived threat of natives faded and hunting opportunities
receded.
A significant number of travelers were suffering from scurvy by the end of their trips. Their typical flour and salted pork/bacon diet had very little vitamin C
in it. The diet in the mining camps was also typically low in fresh
vegetables and fruit, which indirectly led to early deaths of many of
the inhabitants. Some believe that scurvy deaths may have rivaled
cholera as a killer, with most deaths occurring after the victim reached
California.
Miscellaneous deaths included deaths by childbirth, falling
trees, flash floods, homicides, kicks by animals, lightning strikes,
snake bites, and stampedes. According to an evaluation by John Unruh, a 4 percent death rate or 16,000 out of 400,000 total pioneers on all trails may have died on the trail.
Reaching the Sierra Nevada
before the start of the winter storms was critical for a successful
completion of a trip. The most famous failure in that regard was that of
the Donner Party, whose members struggled to traverse what is today called Donner Pass, in November 1846. When the last survivor was rescued in April 1847, 33 men, women, and children had died at Donner Lake; with some of the 48 survivors' confessing to having resorted to cannibalism to survive.
Disease
Disease was the biggest killer on the Oregon Trail. Cholera was responsible for taking many lives. As a fecal-oral disease, it commonly resulted from consuming food or water contaminated by the bacterium.
Because a dead traveler would often be buried at the site of death,
nearby streams could easily be contaminated by the dead body. Other common diseases along the trail included dysentery, an intestinal infection that causes diarrhea containing blood or mucus, and typhoid fever, another fecal-oral disease.
Airborne diseases also commonly affected travelers. One such disease was diphtheria, to which young children were particularly susceptible. It could spread quickly in close quarters, such as the parties that traveled the trail. Measles was also a difficulty, as it is highly contagious and can have an incubation period of ten days or longer. Diseases could spread particularly quickly because settlers had no place to quarantine the sick and because poor sanitation was typical along the route.
Other trails west
There
were other possible migration paths for early settlers, miners, or
travelers to California or Oregon besides the Oregon trail prior to the
establishment of the transcontinental railroads.
From 1821–1846, the Hudson's Bay Company twice annually used the
York Factory Express overland trade route from Fort Vancouver to Hudson Bay
then on to London. James Sinclair led a large party of nearly 200
settlers from the Red River Colony in 1841. These northern routes were
largely abandoned after Britain ceded its claim to the southern Columbia
River basin by way of the Oregon Treaty of 1846.
The longest trip was the voyage of about 13,600 to 15,000 miles
(21,900 to 24,100 km) on an uncomfortable sailing ship rounding the
treacherous, cold, and dangerous Cape Horn between Antarctica
and South America and then sailing on to California or Oregon. This
trip typically took four to seven months (120 to 210 days) and cost
about $350 to $500. The cost could be reduced to zero if you signed on
as a crewman and worked as a common seaman. The hundreds of abandoned
ships, whose crews had deserted in San Francisco Bay in 1849–50, showed
many thousands chose to do this.
Other routes involved taking a ship to Colón, Panama
(then called Aspinwall) and a strenuous, disease ridden, five- to
seven-day trip by canoe and mule over the Isthmus of Panama before
catching a ship from Panama City, Panama
to Oregon or California. This trip could be done from the east coast
theoretically in less than two months if all ship connections were made
without waits and typically cost about $450/person. Catching a fatal
disease was a distinct possibility as Ulysses S. Grant
in 1852 learned when his unit of about 600 soldiers and some of their
dependents traversed the Isthmus and lost about 120 men, women, and
children.
This passage was considerably sped up and made safer in 1855 when the
Panama Railroad was completed at terrible cost in money and life across
the Isthmus. The once treacherous 50-mile (80 km) trip could be done in
less than a day. The time and the cost for transit dropped as regular
paddle wheel steamships and sailing ships went from ports on the east
coast and New Orleans, Louisiana, to Colón, Panama ($80–$100), across
the Isthmus of Panama by railroad ($25) and by paddle wheel steamships
and sailing ships to ports in California and Oregon ($100–$150).
Another route was established by Cornelius Vanderbilt across Nicaragua in 1849. The 120-mile (190 km) long San Juan River to the Atlantic Ocean helps drain the 100-mile (160 km) long Lake Nicaragua.
From the western shore of Lake Nicaragua it is only about 12 miles
(19 km) to the Pacific Ocean. Vanderbilt decided to use paddle wheel
steam ships from the U.S. to the San Juan River, small paddle wheel
steam launches on the San Juan River, boats across Lake Nicaragua, and a
stage coach to the Pacific where connections could be made with another
ship headed to California, Oregon, etc.. Vanderbilt, by undercutting
fares to the Isthmus of Panama and stealing many of the Panama Railroad
workers, managed to attract roughly 30% of the California bound steam
boat traffic. All his connections in Nicaragua were never completely
worked out before the Panama Railroad's completion in 1855. Civil strife
in Nicaragua and a payment to Cornelius Vanderbilt of a "non-compete"
payment (bribe) of $56,000 per year killed the whole project in 1855.
Another possible route consisted of taking a ship to Mexico traversing the country and then catching another ship out of Acapulco,
Mexico to California etc. This route was used by some adventurous
travelers but was not too popular because of the difficulties of making
connections and the often hostile population along the way.
The Gila Trail going along the Gila River in Arizona, across the Colorado River and then across the Sonora Desert in California was scouted by Stephen Kearny's troops and later by Captain Philip St. George Cooke's Mormon Battalion
in 1846 who were the first to take a wagon the whole way. This route
was used by many gold hungry miners in 1849 and later but suffered from
the disadvantage that you had to find a way across the very wide and
very dry Sonora Desert. It was used by many in 1849 and later as a
winter crossing to California, despite its many disadvantages.
Running from 1857 to 1861, the Butterfield Stage Line won the
$600,000/yr. U.S. mail contract to deliver mail to San Francisco,
California. As dictated by southern Congressional members, the
2,800-mile (4,500 km) route ran from St. Louis, Missouri through Arkansas, Oklahoma Indian Territory, Texas, New Mexico Territory, and across the Sonora Desert before ending in San Francisco, California. Employing over 800 at its peak, it used 250 Concord Stagecoaches
seating 12 very crowded passengers in three rows. It used 1,800 head of
stock, horses and mules and 139 relay stations to ensure the stages ran
day and night. A one way fare of $200 delivered a very thrashed and
tired passenger into San Francisco in 25 to 28 days. After traveling the
route, New York Herald reporter Waterman Ormsby said, "I now know what Hell is like. I've just had 24 days of it."
Other ways to get to Oregon were: using the York Factory Express
route across Canada, and down the Columbia River; ships from Hawaii, San
Francisco, or other ports that stopped in Oregon; emigrants trailing up
from California, etc. All provided a trickle of emigrants, but they
were soon overwhelmed in numbers by the emigrants coming over the Oregon
Trail.
The ultimate competitor arrived in 1869, the First Transcontinental Railroad, which cut travel time to about seven days at a low fare of about $60.
Legacy
One of
the enduring legacies of the Oregon Trail is the expansion of the United
States territory to the West Coast. Without the many thousands of
United States settlers in Oregon and California, and thousands more on
their way each year, it is highly unlikely that this would have
occurred.
The western expansion, and the Oregon Trail in particular, inspired numerous creative works about the settlers' experiences.
Commemorative coin
The Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar
was coined to commemorate the route. Issued intermittently between 1926
and 1939, 202,928 were sold to the public. With 131,050 minted in 1926,
that year's issue remains readily available for collectors.
Games
The story of the Oregon Trail inspired the educational video game series The Oregon Trail, which became widely popular in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Television
The Oregon Trail was a television series that ran from September 22 through October 26, 1977, on NBC. The show stars Rod Taylor, Tony Becker, Darleen Carr, Charles Napier, and Ken Swofford. Although the show was canceled after six episodes, the remaining seven episodes were later aired on BBC 2 in the United Kingdom, the entire series was shown in the UK on BBC1, from November 1977 to January 1978, and on April 13, 2010, Timeless Media Group
(TMG) released in the USA the entire show on six DVDs, running 750
minutes. The set includes 14 original episodes, including the
feature-length pilot and the six episodes that did not air on NBC.
The episode of Teen Titans Go! titled "Oregon Trail" parodies expeditions that took place on the Oregon Trail, as well as the 1985 video game The Oregon Trail.
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