Oregon Trail

OREGON TRAIL

OREGON TRAIL, one of several routes traveled in the mid-nineteenth century by pioneers seeking to settle in the western territories. Over a period of about thirty years, roughly 1830 to 1860, some 300,000 Americans crowded these overland trails. The Oregon Trail was first traveled in the early 1840s. Only some 5,000 or so had made it to Oregon Territory by 1845, with another 3,000 making their way to California three years later. This trickle would turn into a flood in the following decade.

The Oregon Trail totaled some 2,000 miles. The Oregon and California Trails followed the same path for almost half of this journey, so over landers headed to either destination faced many of the same natural obstacles. Departing from the small towns of Independence or St. Joseph, Missouri, or Council Bluffs, Iowa, miles of open plains initially greeted the travelers. The trail followed first the Missouri and then the Platte River. The water of the Platte was too dirty to drink, not deep enough to float a barge, and so broad that it left great mud flats and quicksand in the way of the unsuspecting settler. As the Rocky Mountains neared, the overlanders shifted to the north side of the Platte, and then maneuvered to cross the Continental Divide at the South Pass, low enough, broad

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enough, and safe enough for wagon transit. At this halfway point, the Oregon and California Trails diverged, the former heading north. Settlers bound for Oregon Country shadowed the Snake River and faced one last mountain obstacle, the Blue Mountains. The Willamette Valley awaited those sturdy enough to complete this passage and some finished their travels on a reasonably safe boat ride down the Columbia River.

It took six to seven months to travel the complete length of the Oregon Trail. Ideally, those making this journey departed in May to arrive before November and the first heavy snowfalls. However, those leaving too early risked getting mired in mud, and those leaving too late confronted snow at the end of their travels, a dangerous and foreboding prospect. The overlanders traveled in wagon trains, in groups ranging from ten to one hundred wagons. As the trails became better known and well-traveled, most wagoneers preferred smaller trains. Smaller wagon trains moved more quickly and were delayed less often due to internal arguments. When disputes did arise they might be settled by vote or, especially in larger wagon trains, according to a written constitution. On the trail, hardships and dangers proved numerous and discouraging. Accidents, such as drowning, ax wounds, shootings, or being run over by wagons or trampled by livestock, claimed many victims. Sickness, especially cholera from poor drinking water, weakened countless travelers, eventually killing some. Despite the obstacles, people made the journey for economic reasons. The depression of 1837, the most severe of its day, pushed those contemplating a move west to do so sooner rather than later. California's gold rush, starting in 1848, did much to fuel travel west via the overland trails. Fertile land and the potential for wealth from trapping drew people to the Northwest.

Migrants to the West were farmers as well as storekeepers, clerks, saloonkeepers, former soldiers, and other adventurers. They came from all over the United States, including the Upper South, the Midwest, and the Northeast. Because of the difficulty of the journey, most fell between the ages of ten and forty.

Much folklore grew up around the overlanders and their journey. Perhaps the biggest legend of all concerns the danger posed to the migrants by Native Americans. In fact, Native Americans aided, directed, and even accompanied the overlanders. Deaths at the hands of Plains Indians probably numbered only in the hundreds, almost certainly not reaching the several thousands reported in legend. Most Indians sought to profit from the wagoneers by imposing either a toll to cross a river, a fee for guidance down an uncertain road, or by offering an exchange of goods for renewed provisions. Horses often acted as currency.

With the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, the wagon era came to a close. Yet a change in mode of transportation did little to detract from the accomplishment of those who toughed it out on the Oregon Trail and other trails. These pioneers had opened a land and settled it all in one motion.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Billington, Ray Allen. The Far Western Frontier, 1830–1860. London: Harper and Row, 1956.

Unruh, John D., Jr. The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–1860. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1979.

Matthew J. Flynn

See also California Trail ; Wagon Trains ; and vol. 9: The Oregon Trail .