How long on the oregon trail

Some settlers looked at the Oregon Trail with an idealistic eye, but it was anything but romantic. Most people died of diseases such as dysentery, cholera , smallpox or flu, or in accidents caused by inexperience, exhaustion and carelessness.

It was not uncommon for people to be crushed beneath wagon wheels or accidentally shot to death, and many people drowned during perilous river crossings. Travelers often left warning messages to those journeying behind them if there was an outbreak of disease, bad water or hostile American Indian tribes nearby.

As more and more settlers headed west, the Oregon Trail became a well-beaten path and an abandoned junkyard of surrendered possessions. It also became a graveyard for tens of thousands of pioneer men, women and children and countless livestock. Over time, conditions along the Oregon Trail improved. Bridges and ferries were built to make water crossings safer. Settlements and additional supply posts appeared along the way which gave weary travelers a place to rest and regroup.

Trail guides wrote guidebooks, so settlers no longer had to bring an escort with them on their journey. Unfortunately, however, not all the books were accurate and left some settlers lost and in danger of running out of provisions. With the completion of the first transcontinental railroad in Utah in , westward wagon trains decreased significantly as settlers chose the faster and more reliable mode of transportation.

It was also a main thoroughfare for massive cattle drives between and By , the railroads had all but eliminated the need to journey thousands of miles in a covered wagon. Settlers from the east were more than happy to hop a train and arrive in the West in one week instead of six months. Although modern progress ended the need for the Oregon Trail, its historical significance could not be ignored.

The National Park Service named it a National Historic Trail in and continues to educate the public on its importance. First Emigrants on the Michigan Trail. Oregon California Trails Association.

Marcus Whitman Narcissa Whitman Oregon Donation Land Act. The Oregon Encyclopedia. Oregon or Bust. Arizona Geographic Alliance. Oregon Trail. Trail Basics: The Starting Point. National Oregon California Trail Center. Trail Basics: The Wagon. Where did the Oregon Trail Go? National Park Service.

Whitman Mission Route, Oregon Historic Trails Fund. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present.

In , Dr. Elijah White, the newly appointed Indian agent in Oregon, successfully led men, women and children there. But the real thrust westward came the following year, when the Oregon Trail took on a new significance thanks to the so-called Great Emigration. Peter Burnett was chosen captain, and a so-called cow column for slower wagons and herds of livestock was formed with Jesse Applegate as its leader. Applegate would later provide descriptions of life on the Oregon Trail in his memoir, A Day with the Cow Column in Mountain man John Gant was to be chief guide as far as Fort Hall.

They would follow the trail left by Meek and Newell. Marcus Whitman, a Protestant missionary and physician who had established a mission in Oregon in , would join the Applegate train on his return west after an eastern visit. Doctors came to be a welcome rarity along the trail. Along with his uncle, Jess traveled with his parents, four brothers, one sister and numerous other relatives.

Years later, when he was in his 70s, he wrote Recollections of My Boyhood , in which he largely succeeds in portraying events and personalities from the western crossing through the eyes of a young boy.

As the Applegate party journeyed across the prairies and over the Rockies, the trek had mostly seemed like grand fun to the boy. At first his recollections bubble with the thrill of adventure. He had traded nails and bits of metal with Indian children and thrown buffalo chips at other white children. Later, though, the recollections become more somber. Jesse A. Applegate had also experienced the suffering that almost no early traveler on the Oregon Trail could avoid. Food supplies would inevitably become low and water scarce.

A bone-wrenching weariness would set in as the miseries mounted. The U. But as the emigrants pushed overland, many lost sight of the vision that had set them going. The weight of hardship piled on hardship was enough, on occasion, to make men and women break down and cry, and perhaps even turn back.

Yet most travelers summoned up reserves of courage and kept going. They endured every hardship from a mule kick in the shins to cholera. The ones who got through usually did so because of sheer determination. The Applegate train began to assemble in late April, the best time to get rolling. The date of departure had to be selected with care. If they began the more than 2,mile journey too early in the spring, there would not be enough grass on the prairie to keep the livestock strong enough to travel.

Animals would begin to sicken, slowing up the train. Such slowdowns would often throw off the schedule and sometimes cause major problems down the road. If they waited too long they might later be trapped in the mountains by early winter storms. Over the years, other wagon trains used Westport, Leavenworth and St. Joseph as jumping-off points.

The Applegate train used Independence, preeminent since as an outfitting center. Since the majority of emigrants were farmers with families, they often chose Murphy farm wagons as their chief means of transport. Conestoga wagons, which weighed one-and-a-half tons tons empty, were too heavy for travel where there were no roads. The heavier the wagon, the more likely it would bog down in mud or cause the team to break down.

Oregon-bound travelers were advised to keep their wagons weighing less than one-and-a-half tons fully loaded. The wagons had by-three-and-a-half foot bodies, and their covers were made of canvas or a waterproofed sheeting called osnaburg. Frames of hickory bows supported the cloth tops, which protected pioneers from rain and sun.

The rear wheels were five or six feet in diameter, but the front wheels were four feet or less so that they would not jam against the wagon body on sharp turns. Metal parts were kept to a minimum because of the weight, but the tires were made of iron to hold the wheels together and to protect the wooden rims. The rims and spokes would still sometimes crack and split, of course, and in the dry air of the Great Plains, they were also likely to shrink, which eventually caused the iron tires to slip off.

In fact, when rivers were too deep to be forded and there was no timber to build rafts, the travelers would remove the wheels and float the wagons across. Once he had selected a wagon or two, the pioneer next had to decide on his draft animals. Most emigrants, including Captain Burnett, swore by oxen. Unfortunately, they also had their drawbacks.

Their cloven hoofs tended to splinter on mountain rocks, and oxen could only do about 15 miles a day, while mules did Prosperous families usually took two or more wagons because the typical wagon did not have a large carrying capacity. After flour sacks, food, furniture, clothes and farm equipment were piled on, not much space remained. Space was so limited that, except in terrible weather, most travelers cooked, ate and slept outside.

The members of the Applegate train often killed buffalo and antelope, but a more dependable supply of meat was the herd of cattle led behind the wagons. Once the wagons were loaded, the animals gathered and the emigrants reasonably organized, Captain Peter Burnett finally gave the signal for the Applegates and the others to move out. The train included nearly 1, persons of both sexes, more than wagons, oxen and nearly loose cattle.

The Great Emigration of had begun. Out on the plains in the middle of May, the grass was luxuriant and the wildflowers out in force. The spring storms were often startling in their power. The first miles were a hubbub.

Ill-broken oxen and reluctant mules either bolted or sulked in harness, entangled themselves in picket ropes or escaped entirely and sped back to the starting point. When not busy rounding up livestock, the exuberant males of the party quarreled over firewood and water holes and raced for preferred positions in line.

Still, for the most part, the travelers had it relatively easy during the first few weeks on the trail as they headed northwest toward Nebraska and the Platte River. Despite the occasional thunderstorm, the weather was usually pleasant. It was a good time to learn to handle a prairie schooner.

Jesse Applegate wrote about the workings of a typical day on the trail:. This corral of the plains was made the night before by parking the wagons in a circle. The rear wagon was connected with the wagon in front by its tongue and ox chains. It was strong enough to keep the oxen from breaking out, and also served as a barricade in case of Indian attack. Promptly at seven, the bugle sounded, and the wagon train was on its way.

Women and children often walked beside the trail, gathering wild flowers and odd-looking stones. Boys and young men on horseback kept the loose stock from straying too far, as they trailed along behind the wagons. At noon, we stopped to eat. Oxen were turned loose with their yokes on, so they might graze and rest. Sometimes the officers of the train got together at noon to consider the case of someone who had violated the rules or had committed a crime.

He was given a fair trial and, if found guilty, was sentenced according to the nature of his offense. All through the afternoon the oxen plodded, and when the wagons arrived at the spot chosen by the guide as a camping place, preparations were made to spend the night. Livestock were driven out to pasture, tents were pitched, fires built, and supper was on its way. Perhaps hunters came in with choice parts of buffalo or antelope, and everyone enjoyed a feast. The enthusiasm for the Oregon Trail as a state icon prompted trail emigrant Ezra Meeker to retrace his route west in reverse, driving his ox-drawn wagon from Olympia, Washington, to Iowa in and again in to promote the preservation of Oregon Trail sites and history.

In , Walter Meacham, an Oregon Trail enthusiast from Baker, created the Old Oregon Trail Association, which staged sentimental public programs promoting the commemoration of nineteenth-century emigration to Oregon.

In , the State of Oregon, through the Oregon Trail Coordinating Committee, sponsored a multi-year commemoration with public programs, publications, and museum exhibitions. By the s, several museums on the Oregon Trail had opened in Oregon. Interest in the Oregon Trail continues to generate state, regional, national, and international interest. Books, articles, and ephemera publications document new findings and reprint diaries, memoirs, and descriptions of the trail and travel conditions.

As an icon of Oregon history, the Oregon Trail is likely to endure in scholarship and in heritage commemorations. Pamphlets like these both encouraged and guided emigrants to resettle in the West.

Courtesy Oreg. Research Library, OrHi George Himes from the Oregon Historical Society is seated second from the right. Research Library. Illustration of one of the many trail hazards: mud. Artist was George H. Baker, and his drawings appeared in Crossing the Plains, by J. The Oregon History Wayfinder is an interactive map that identifies significant places, people, and events in Oregon history. Applegate, Jesse. Barlow, Mary S. Bowen, William A. Seattle: University of Washington Press, Burcham, Mildred Baker.

Clark, Keith, and Lowell Tiller. Terrible Trail: The Meek Cutoff. Caldwell, ID: Caxton, Faragher, John Mack. Men and Women on the Overland Trail. New Haven: Yale University Press, Haines, Aubrey L. Historic Sites along the Oregon Trail. Gerald, MO: Patrice Press, Johnson, David Alan. Founding the Far West. Berkeley: University of Calififornia Press, Kaiser, Leo, and Priscilla Knuth, eds.

Kroll, Helen. Mattes, Merrill J. The Great Platte River Road. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, McClelland, John M. Longview Publishing, Miller, James D. Minto, John. Moore, Shirley Ann Wilson. Oregon Trail Emigrant Resources. Oregon State Library, Salem. Parkman, Francis. New York: Knickerbocker Magazine, Reid, John Phillip. Taylor, Quintard. Garcia, and Terry P. Wilson, Lexington, MA: D. Heath, Vaughan, Chelsea.

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