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| Overview |
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| The Oregon Trail is the best known of all the many historic routes used by Americans in the settlement of the West. Stretching for more than 1,900 miles from Missouri to the Willamette Valley, the trail spanned more than half the continent. After the passage of thousands of covered wagon emigrants, the Oregon Trail route was later followed by the transcontinental railroads. Today it is paralleled by the present modern Interstate highway. |
OREGON
trail
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This display was part of a comprehensive program to interpret the history of the Oregon Trail to travelers along Interstate Highway 80N* for the bicentennial in 1976. It was a joint effort of the Oregon Department of Transportation and the U.S. Federal Highway Administration. |
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The decision to leave home, family country,
and all the ties that bound men and women
to each other and to set out for a distant
and largely unknown land was one reached
by thousands of people in the middle years
of the nineteenth century. The motivations were varied, and some of the emigrants found
it difficult to explain why they set out to journey toward the setting sun. Even so,
most felt that, in some way, they were taking part in a significant phase of the American experience. |
Then it may be asked, whey did such men peril everything---burning their ships behind them,. exposing their helpless families to the possibilities of massacre and starvation, braving death---and for what purpose?
I am not quite certain that any rational answer will ever be given to that question.
---James Nesmith, emigrant of 1843
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| Ontario |
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Safety Rest Area
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Through most of what is now Idaho, the Oregon Trail had closely paralleled the Snake River, keeping to the high, level tablelands of the Snake River Plain.
The trail crossed the Snake near old Fort Boise, at a point approximately 15 miles south of the I-80N bridge. From the Fort Boise crossing, the trail stayed 10 to 15 miles west of the present route of I-80*, joining the modern highway at Farewell Bend, 25 miles ahead.
The terrain through which the emigrants passed was treeless and gentle, but provided hints of the more formidable country they would soon be traversing.
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at 11 o’clock we resumed our journey; and directly leaving the river and crossing the artemisia (sagebrush) plain, in several acents we reached the foot of a ridge, where the road entered a dry sandy hollow, up which it continued to the head; and, crossing a divided range, entered a similar one. We met here two poor emigrants, (Irishmen,) who had lost their horses two days since – probably stolen by the Indians; and were returning to the fort…they had recently had nothing to eat; and I halted to unpack an animal, and gave them meat for their dinner. ---John C. Fremont, 1843
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After crossing we followed up a Cree(k) a short distance and waited till after dinner then we hitched and went on fifteen miles to watter the afternoon was very hot, and the roads intolerably dusty which made it very hard on the teams…It was after dark before we reached the (Malheur) River, found a great many teams here waiting for a leader to start out on the new route or Cut-off. ---Charlotte Pengra, 1853
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| September 9 come 20 miles to day hard on man and beast very warm nothing but hills and hollows and rocks o dear if we were only in Willamette valley or wher ever we are going for I am tired of this ---Agnes Stewart Warner, 1853 |
| *I-80N has been renamed to I-84 |
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| Fort Boise |
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Outpost on the Trail
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Fort Boise, at the junction of the Boise and Snake rivers, was a product of American and British fur rivalry. Fort Hall, 300 miles to the east, was built by Andrew Wyeth’s newly formed Columbia River Company, to supply trappers and early emigrants. John McLoughlin refused to allow his Hudson’s Bay Company to be outdone and ordered Fort Boise built to provide competition.
It was constructed in 1834 and served as a supply station and welcome sight to emigrants who had just trekked 300 miles from Fort Hall over the Snake River Plain.
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| The Meek Cutoff |
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The prospect of shortening the drudgery and avoiding additional pain and toil appealed to some emigrants. In 1845, Stephen Meek, former Mountain man, was convinced a more direct route to the Willamette Valley could be found, thus saving many miles and several weeks of travel and avoiding the crossing of the Blue Mountains. He persuaded between 1,000 and 1,500 emigrants to follow him almost directly west from Fort Boise. One emigrant who succumbed to Meek’s assertion was William A. Goulder. He later recalled:
At Fort Boise, Meek told us that we could avoid all trouble and danger by taking a route over which he could guide us from Fort Boise to The Dalles of the Columbia. With the assistance of (Nathan) Olney, Meek made a rude map of the country, showing a route up the Malheur River and across low intervening ridges to the Des Chutes, and thence to The Dalles. This route, he said, would give the Cayuse and Walla Walla country a wide berth and enable us to avoid all contact with the supposedly hostile Indians.
The decision to follow Meek was fatal for at least 24 persons. The starving and bedraggled emigrants were months longer on the trail than they should have been. The group finally arrived at The Dalles, the western terminus of the trail. James Field recorded this description of the Oregon desert on August 21, 1845 during the ill-fated detour:
Since crossing to this side of the Snake River again the road has been fearfull dusty. In fact, a person who has never traveled these wormwood barrens can form no idea as to what depth dust may be cut up in them by the passing of a few wagons. To a person walking in th road it is frequently more than she deep, and if the wind happens t blow lengthwise of the road, it raises such a fog that you cannot see the next wagon in front.
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| River Crossing |
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The Challenge of a River Crossings
Not much thought is given today to the crossing of rivers as modern bridges take automobiles quickly over even the broadest expanse. But for the Oregon Trail emigrant crossing a river, particularly a large one like the Snake, was a very serious undertaking.
Since leaving Independence at the start of the trek along the Oregon Trail, the emigrants had crossed several rivers, but none presented the problems and danger which were inherent in crossing the Snake River.
Many of the emigrants managed their own crossings, but there was an easier way. By 1853 a ferry had been established at the ford on the Snake. The exorbitant rates the ferryman charged did not endear him to the emigrants.
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When we returned to camp, all was confusion getting things in shape to cross the river. My brother Cicero now had charge of the stock. In crossing, great care must be taken in the selection of a place, and if possible to cross where there were shoal, for there the river would be wider, but not so deep. Our stock were so poor now that they would often drift up against a rock, and men on horseback would have to use ropes to pull them back into the water….
To get out things across, every wagon had to be taken apart, and all the things unpacked and repacked, but through it all I heard no word of grumbling…
Father soon came for us and as he was putting the wheels of the wagon in the boat, I told him to fix as comfortable place as he could for sister, as she was too sick to sit up (recurrence of cholera)…As we started across, the wind began to blow, making it hard to row the boat. When we were in the middle, father was taken with cramps in his legs; he had made so many trips across that day he was just worn out…
We had not drifted so far from the regular landing place that it was hard to get the boat to the opposite shore, but father spied a tree fallen from the bank into the water, and rowed his boat there, for he knew it would form an eddy and assist him in landing.
--Martha Hill Gillette
the Snake River Crossing, 1853
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| Migration |
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The Oregon Trail had its beginnings in the first trails between prehistoric villages, hunting and fishing grounds and berry-picking sites. These footpaths were the highways of the Indians for thousands of years.
The Nineteenth Century first introduced the white explorers and trappers to these trails which became linked into a fairly regular route from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. But not until the great migrations of emigrants toward the mid-1800’s did the Trail become indelibly etched on the landscape. By 1869, the year the first transcontinental railroad was completed, over 350,000 emigrants had toiled across the blistering plains and crossed formidable mountains and rivers in one of the great migrations of history.
One still wonders what motivated so many people to endure so many hardships. While there are many complex answers, principal among the reasons was the concept of Manifest Destiny, and unwritten creed distilled from many expansionist ideas. Basically, it was the belief that Americans should inhabit and control the land "from sea to shining sea." The idea took on religious overtones, and the West was seen to be America’s possessed in accordance with God’s will and required by history.
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Many who had large families of children (for these seemed to be as numerous here as the birds among the bushes), were removing to Oregon with the hope of finding a more salubrious climate than the one they had left, and of obtaining from the government of the United States a grant of land which would enable them to maintain their families in honorable independence. Some had become involved in pecuniary embarrassments, and having sold their property to pay their creditors, could not consent to remain where they must necessarily see their former pleasant homes in other hands. Others had during a long time, their yearly acquisitions taken from them by eager creditors who had thus crippled their resources depressed their energies, and deprived them of all hope of either paying their debts or of being able to educate their children…Some were actuated by mere love of change; many more by a spirit of enterprise and adventure; and a few, I believe, knew not exactly why they were thus upon the road. With these reasons, were more or less mixed up as a very important element, -- a desire to occupy the country as a basis of title in the dispute between the government of the United States and that of Great Britain.
---Jesse Quinn Thornton, emigrant of 1846
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| The Last 400 Miles |
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That portion of the Oregon Trail lying within modern-day Oregon constituted the last 400 miles of the 1,900-mile journey from independence, Missouri. Up to the point where the trail crossed the Snake River into Oregon, the emigrant road up the Platte River and across the Snake River plain had presented no insurmountable difficulties. Even the crossing of the Continental Divide had been accomplished over the gentle slopes of South Pass.
But this final portion of the journey often provided to be the ultimate test of emigrant mettle. At a time when provisions were running low and men and animals were nearing exhaustion, the travelers were faced with their largest rivers, the most rugged mountains, and some of the driest desert terrain they were to encounter. On top of the difficult terrain and scarcity of food, water and forage, this portion of the trail often had to be traversed during the fall months, with the imminent threat of early snows in the Blue Mountains of the Cascades.
Evidences of the Oregon Trail can be seen in many places along its length across the state. These deeply worn ruts remain after more than a century as a testimony to thousands who followed the trail west.
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| After The Wagon |
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Later Developments after the Wagon
After the majority of the emigrant caravans had passed over the Oregon Trail, the use of the route was followed soon by the developing freight business which supplied the mining towns scattered through the region. The heavy freight wagons and stagecoaches continued to etch their tracks into the sandy soil and through the mountains. A few years later as the spider-web of railroad tracks began to expand throughout the country, many portions of the well-used trail were followed by tracklayers of the Oregon Railway and Navigation Company (later merged into the Union Pacific System). Even later as the automobile developed and sought pavement to follow, one of the first major highways serving as an East-West link-up, U.S. 30, trailed obediently close to the ruts and tracks of the thousands of wagons and feet gone before.
When the Interstate Highway System began to materialize, I-80N* assumed the role of the major tethering cord between the East and Pacific Northwest. In many locations it very nearly approximates the Oregon Trail, and in most others it runs only a few miles from where the wagons rolled.
*I-80N has been renamed to I-84
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| Weatherby Safety Rest Area |
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After leaving the Snake River at Farwell Bend, the emigrants traversed a divide and then descended into the Burnt River drainage near present-day Huntington. The river was followed through the canyon to the site of modern Durkee where it continued to the northwest across a divide into Baker Valley.
The road so far from Fort Hall had not been very bad, and being generally down hill we made good travel. On entering Burn-river Canyon, however, it meandered a good deal, and often followed the bed of the stream to avoid the labor of cutting the dense thicket. It was also steep climbing to get out at the head of the canyon.
--John Minto, emigrant of 1844
Thursday, August 23d. Prepare to move camp, find three of our good horses gone. After looking for and tracking them some distance over almost impassible hills, come to the conclusion that they were driven off by the Indians who are all gone this morning. All are sad enough. Rose four and one-half hours, twelve miles; encamp on Burn River; rode over long, long hills; crossed five creeks.
--Myra F. Eells, emigrant of 1838
Tuesday, Oct. 8…Our road was even worse than yesterday and we ascended the steepest hil I ever say teams cross. We had to double teams, and hard work at that. We crossed the creek a great many times and finally took a north fork and followed it out to the head, crossed a low gap in the ridge and struck a leading hollow and soon found grass and water sufficient to take us to Walley Walley, but our oxen are getting very weak and many have already given out. Pleasant this afternoon except a little too much wind and smoke.
--Edward E. Parrish, emigrant of 1844
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| Burnt River |
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A Difficult Ascent
The terrain in this area was not as high or mountainous as many other parts of the route. Here the trail followed the twisting canyon, which presented recurrent obstacles of ravines, fords, and scarce forage, depleting the strength of the emigrants and their animals.
Soon after we came to Burnt River. The trail here led down a steep hill. I stopped on the brink and looked down, and asked anxiously, ‘Have we to go down that awful place?’ ‘Yes,’ said father, ‘there is no other way, son’…We had to turn square upstream. The water was deep and swift; I went back and said: "Now I will rough-lock both hind wheels, and then six men stand on it and I will try it.’ The plan workedfinely.
---Edward Henry Lenox, 1843
Trailed ten miles over the roughest country I ever saw, Burnt River being hemmed in by hills on both sides. Encamped in the bottom.
---James W. Nesmith, 1843
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| Wilson Price Hunt |
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Wilson Price Hunt and the Astorians
The earliest American party to travel this portion of the Oregon Trail was led by Wilson Price Hunt. Headed for Astoria, at the mouth of the Columbia, the party encountered the Burnt River segment of the seemingly endless ordeal in the winter of 1811, weak and exhausted. Hunt describes some of the difficulties encountered:
My group was now made up of thirty-two white men, a woman eight months pregnant, her two children, and three Indians. We had only five puny horses to feed us during out trip over the mountains…The pregnant woman (later) gave birth to her child…His wife rode horseback with her newly born child in her arms. Another child, two years old and wrapped in a blanket, was fastened by her side. One would have thought from her behavior, that nothing had happened to her.
The following summer, Robert Stuart led a party of Astorians back over the trail to St. Louis. Stuart made this entry in the Burnt River area:
When near the height of land, we saw no less than 19 antelopes, a sight so uncommon in this country that we in some measure, for a considerable time, doubted the evidence of our senses – We tried all possible means to get a shot at some of them, but they were so exceedingly shy as to avoid our (every endeavor at a near) approach.
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| A Day on the Trail |
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For most emigrants, each day on the Oregon Trail was a duplicate of the one previous. After many months on the journey, life became an endless tread-mill centered about the fixed routines of the wagon train.
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| Jesse Applegate |
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| Jesse Applegate, leader of one contingent of the 1843 emigration, was a most colorful chronicler of emigrant life. Following are excerpts from his first-hand account of a typical day on the Oregon Trail: |
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--It is four A.M; the sentinels on duty have discharged their rifles – the signal that hours of sleep are over…Sixty men start from the corral and by five o’clock they have begun to move the herd of 5,000 cattle and horses toward camp. |
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--From six to seven o’clock is a busy time; breakfast is eaten, tents struck, wagons loaded, and teams yoked. There are 60 wagons in 15 divisions or platoons… |
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…Ten or 15 young men set off on a buffalo hunt. As the unfriendly Souix have driven the buffalo out of the Platte, the hunters must ride 15 or 20 miles to reach them. |
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| Baker Valley Rest Area |
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The Lone Pine
Many journals up to 1843 mention a "lone pine" that stood alone in the center of Baker Valley. The tree which the Indians had left untouched for centuries, was one of the landmarks of the Oregon Trail until it was cut down by emigrants during the 1843 emigration.
This noble tree stood in the center of a most lovely valley ten miles from any other timber. It could be seen at the distance of many miles, rearing its majestic form above the surrounding plain, and constituted a beautiful landmark for the guidance of the traveler. Many teams had passed on before me, and at intervals, as I drove along, I would raise my head and look at that beautiful green pine. At last, on looking up as usual, the tree was gone. I was perplexed for a moment to know whether I was going in the right direction. There was the plain, beaten wagon road before me, and I drove on until I reached the camp just at dark. That brave old pine, which had withstood the storms and snows of centuries, had fallen at last by the vandal hands of man. Some of our inconsiderate people had cut it down for fuel, but it was too green to burn. It was a useless and most unfortunate act.
---Peter Burnett, emigrant of 1843
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| Oregon Settlers |
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First Contact With Oregon Settlers
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During some years of the emigration, eager residents of the Willamette Valley rode east over the Oregon Trail to meet their families and friends coming east. Usually they carried food or even drove beef cattle with them to provide fresh meat for the travelers, who at that time were four or five months away from the outfitting stores of frontier Missouri.
By 1853 an enterprising trader had established a store in Baker Valley, probably only a tent-house seasonal operation. Charlotte Pengra noted in her diary of August 20, 1853:
We have run out of meat and sugar. have a very little molasses that Brnon payed at the rate of four dollars per gallon – the poorest stuff that ever I saw…
As reported by Mrs. Pengra, pork sold by the Baker Valley trader cost 50 cents a pound, Oregon beef 25 cents a pound, and molasses the standard rate of $4.00 per gallon.
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| The Nez Perce |
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At Baker Valley the emigrants entered the territory of the Nez Perce Indians. The culture of this tribe had changed dramatically when they first acquired horses only a century earlier, and they had adapted many of the plains Indian customs, such as the skin teepee, for their own use.
Although the tribe was centered in the area of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers to the north, the lush valleys of the Powder River and the Grand Ronde were popular summer camping places. Indian lodges were often noted by westward-bound travelers.
During the period of emigration, the Nez Perce were friendly toward travelers along the trail, selling them food and horses and warning them of dangers that might lie ahead.
When we reached Powder River we were surprised by seeing a small party of horsemen approaching. These proved to be Doctor Marcus Whitmand and a part of friendly Nez Perce Indians who were coming to warn us of the dangers of the unfriendly Indians that threatned our lives should we attemt to drive unguarded through their lands.
--Sarah J. Cummins, emigrant of 1845
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| The Covered Wagon |
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The Wagon that Crossed the Continent
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An emigrant outfit was carefully assembled to provide the necessities of life and a degree of shelter on the trail while at the same time avoiding excessive weight. The wagon needed to be strong enough to carry loads up to 2,500 pounds, yet light enough not to strain the draft animals that pulled it.
Because of the necessity to reduce strain on the oxen or mules, most emigrants walked along side. The added weight of even one passenger was often too much for the weary oxen. And, the bone jarring jolts of the wagon on the rutted road were usually sufficient to help travelers prefer the day’s distance on foot to the experience in the wagon box.
As the oxen wearied and weakened, the load would often have to be lightened. Countless pieces of large but unnecessary furniture, many of them family heirlooms, were discarded along the length of the trail.
The loading should consist mostly of provisions. Emigrants should not burden themselves with furniture, or many beds; and a few light trunks, or very light boxes, might be brought to pack clothes in. Trunks are best, but they should be light. All heavy articles should be left, except a few cooking vessels, one shovel, and a pair of pot hooks. Clothes enough to last a year, and several pair of strong, heavy shoes to each person, it will be well to bring. If you heavily loaded let the quantity of sugar and coffee be small, as milk is preferable and does not have to be hauled. You should have a water keg, and a tin canister made like a powder canister to hold your milk in; a few tin cups, tin plates, tin saucers, and butcher knives; and there should be a small grindstone in company, as the tools become dull on the way. Many other articles may be useful. Rifles and shotguns, pistols, lead, and shot, I need hardly say are useful, and some of them necessary on the road, and sell well here. A rifle that would cost $20 in the States is worth $50 here, and shotguns in proportion.
--Peter Burnett, letter of 1844
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| Supplies |
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Thus equipped, ready for adventure, anticipating a new home on the far Pacific Slope, the emigrants were ready for days, weeks and months of travel on the Oregon Trail.
Handy Items:
Liniments
Chamber pot
Tallow |
Bandages
Washbowl
Spyglasses |
Campstool
Lantern
Scissors |
Surgical instruments
Candle molds
Needles, pins, thread |
Tools and Miscellaneous:
Set of augers
Ax
Hoe
Shovel
Whetstone |
Oxbows
Kingbolts
Oxshoes
Wagon tongue
Chains |
Gimlet
Hammer
Plow
Spade |
Axles
Linchpins
Spikes
Heavy ropes |
Luxuries:
Canned foods
Dolls
Silverware
Musical instruments
China
Furniture
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Plant cuttings
Family albums
Fine linens
Schoolbooks
Jewelry
Iron stoves |
FOOD:
Flour Hardtack
Bacon
Coffee
Baking Soda |
Molasses
Dried beans
Dried beef
Dried fruit |
Salt
Vinegar
Pepper
Eggs |
Sugar
Rice
Tea
Corn Meal |
Clothing:
Wool sack coats
Cotton shirts
Palm-leaf sun hat
Buckskin pants |
Duck trousers
Felt hat
Wool pantaloons
Brogans |
Boots
Cotton dresses
Cotton socks
Sunbonnet |
Rubber coats
Flannel shirts
Green goggles |
Cooking Utensils:
Dutch oven
Skillet
Coffee pot
Ladle |
Butcher knife
Reflector oven
Water kettle
Tin tableware |
Kettle
Coffee Grinder
Teapot
Matches |
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Weaponry:
Riffle
Gunpowder
Bullet pouch |
Pistol
Lead
Holster |
Knife
Bullet mold |
Hatchet
Powder horn
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Bedding and Tent Supplies:
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Feather beds
Pillows
Tent
Stakes |
Poles
Ropes
Blankets
Ground cloths |
See More Oregon Trail Information
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