He explored most of Idaho and the Oregon Trail to the Columbia. Click on a landmark on the map above or a name below for a photo. 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. Many returned with significant gold which helped jump-start the Oregon economy. 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 Donation Land Act provided for married settlers to be granted 320 acres (1.3 km2) and unmarried settlers 160 acres (0.65 km2). We desire not only to educate but also to build a community of friends and family … 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. 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. The wagons were stopped at The Dalles, Oregon by the lack of a road around Mount Hood. American Indians had traversed this country for many years, but for European Americans it was unknown territory. Although officially the Hudson's Bay Company discouraged settlement because it interfered with their lucrative fur trade, their Chief Factor at Fort Vancouver, Dr. John McLoughlin, gave substantial help including employment until they could get established. They were looking for a safe location to spend the winter. The Oregon Trail is a series of educational computer games.The first game was originally developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971 and produced by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) in 1974. In popular culture, the Oregon Trail is perhaps the most iconic subject in the larger history of Oregon. Ongoing educational films, coupled with a uniquely stocked trail library, provide a wealth of history to explore. McLoughlin, despite working for the British-based Hudson's Bay Company, gave help in the form of loans, medical care, shelter, clothing, food, supplies and seed to United States emigrants. Jedediah Smith was killed by Indians about 1831. 87504. Astor, pressured by potential confiscation by the British navy of 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 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. 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. This was ultimately a shorter and faster route than the one they followed west. He joined the wagon train at the Platte River for the return trip. 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. Following persecution and mob action in Missouri, Illinois, and other states, and the martyrdom 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 LDS settlers west. From 1843 until the 1860s, some 400,000 men, women, and children followed this 2,000-mile trail, averaging four months to make the cross-country journey. 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. Robert Stuart of the Astorians (a group of fur traders who established Fort Astoria on the Columbia River in western Oregon) became the first white man to use what later became known as the Oregon Trail. The group planned to retrace the path followed by the overland expedition back up to the east following the Columbia and Snake rivers. The emigrants traveled by wagon in search of fertile land in Oregon's Willamette Valley. [23], In April 1859, an expedition of U. S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers led by Captain James H. Simpson left Camp Floyd (Utah) to establish an army supply route across the Great Basin to the eastern slope of the Sierras. PO Box 728 Learn more about trail life, trail impacts on indigenous people, how the trail shaped history, and more! The Hudson's Bay Company built a new much larger Fort Vancouver in 1824 slightly upstream of Fort Astoria on the Washington side of the Columbia River (they were hoping the Columbia would be the future Canada – U.S. border). National Trails Office - Regions 6, 7, 8 National Park Service There are many places of history and commemoration on the Oregon National Historic Trail to visit. The Oregon Trail is a historic 2,000-mile (3,264-km) trail used by American pioneers living in the Great Plains in the 19th century. He had just completed an epic journey through much of British Columbia and most of the Columbia River drainage system. 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. He believed the wagon trains were large enough that they could build whatever road improvements they needed to make the trip with their wagons. They then traveled overland up the Blackfoot River and crossed the Continental Divide at Lewis and Clark Pass[2] and on to the head of the Missouri River. The men of the Peoria Party were among the first pioneers to traverse most of the Oregon Trail. Accompanying wagons carried more food and supplies. By 1840 the Hudson's Bay Company 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. This route went through central Nevada (roughly where U.S. Route 50 goes today) and was about 280 miles shorter than the 'standard' Humboldt River California trail route.[24]. About 3,000 out of over 60,000 Mormon pioneers came across with handcarts. The British through the Hudson's Bay Company tried to discourage any U.S. trappers, traders and settlers from doing any significant trapping, trading or settling in the Pacific Northwest. There were several U.S. government sponsored explorers who explored part of the Oregon Trail and wrote extensively about their explorations. The Army improved the trail for use by wagons and stagecoaches in 1859 and 1860. Fort Nisqually was built near the present town of DuPont, Washington and was the first Hudson's Bay Company fort on Puget Sound. A good beaver skin could bring up to $4.00 at a time when a man's wage was often $1.00/day. According to studies by trail historian John Unruh the livestock may have been as plentiful or more plentiful than the immigrants in many years. trapping took place in the fall when the fur became prime. 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. Overall it is estimated that over 400,000 pioneers used the Oregon Trail and its three primary offshoots, the California, Bozeman, and Mormon Trails. 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, Iowa. The North West Company started establishing more forts and trading posts of their own. Although Lewis and William Clarkfound a path to … By the year 1836, the first of the migrant train of wagons was put together. A color, topographical map of the entire Oregon NHT is available as a pdf file (2.36mb). 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. By 1821, when armed hostilities broke out with their Hudson's Bay Company rivals, the North West Company was pressured by the British government to merge with the Hudson's Bay Company. [25] The Pony Express delivered mail summer and winter in roughly ten days from the midwest to 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. Many of them traveled in large wagon trains using covered wagons to … There it was attacked and overwhelmed by Indians before being blown up, killing all the crew and many Indians. Since we’d hate for you to drive right past any of Oregon’s past without being any the wiser, we’ve collected our favorite glimpses into Oregon… The first "decent" map[12] of California and Oregon were drawn by Frémont and his topographers and cartographers in about 1848. 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. In early 1811, the supply ship Tonquin left supplies and men to establish Fort Astoria (Oregon) at the mouth of the Columbia River and Fort Okanogan (Washington) at the confluence of the Okanogan and Columbia Rivers. 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. The party continued east via the Sweetwater River, North Platte River (where they spent the winter of 1812–1813) and Platte River to the Missouri River, finally arriving in St. Louis in the spring of 1813. The British lost the land north of the Columbia River they had so long controlled. In the late 1830s the Hudson's Bay Company instituted a policy intended to destroy or weaken the American fur trade companies. 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. Traffic became two-directional as towns were established along the trail. The Platte proved to be unnavigable. 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. The Oregon Trail is a text-based strategy video game developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971 and produced by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) beginning in 1975. 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 treaty granted the Hudson's Bay Company 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, British Columbia. John Jacob Astor, fur trader, entrepreneur, and one of the wealthiest men in the U.S. created a subsidiary of the American Fur Company, called the Pacific Fur Company in 1810. It adorns a recent Oregon highway license plate, is an obligatory reference in the resettlement of Oregon, and has long attracted study, commemoration, and celebration as a foundational event in the state’s past. By 1825 the Hudson's Bay Company 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. View RV Park (5.68 mi) The Bridge Street Inn (4.68 mi) Quality Inn Sunridge Inn & Conference Center; View all hotels near National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center on Tripadvisor 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". Oregon Trail, also called Oregon-California Trail, in U.S. history, an overland trail between Independence, Missouri, and Oregon City, near present-day … 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. It’s a half-mile paved, easy accessible trail that follows some of the best preserved and most scenic traces of the Oregon Trails. After ferrying across the Missouri River and establishing wagon trains near what became Omaha, Nebraska, the Mormons followed the northern bank of the Platte River in Nebraska to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. Of the rest Guided by experienced guides, handcarts—pulled and pushed by two to four people—were as fast as oxen-pulled wagons and allowed them to bring 75 to 100 pounds (34 to 45 kg) of possessions plus some food, bedding, and tents to Utah. 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. The Tonquin then went up the coast to Puget Sound for a trading expedition. [7] 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. Smith reasoned since the Sweetwater flowed east it must eventually run into the Missouri River. 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. Canada had very few potential settlers who were willing to move over 2,500 miles to the Pacific Northwest, although several hundred ex-trappers, British and American, and their families did start settling in Oregon, Washington and 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 25–28 days. An early blizzard trapped them in the mountains for five months. Because the over 2,000 mile long trail covers parts of seven states, this map measures approximately 50" x 10". 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 crude path established by the ill-fated Donner Party of 1846 into Utah and the Salt Lake Valley. The Historic Route. [13] 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. Upon arriving back in a settled area they bought pack horses (on credit) and retrieved their furs. In 1834, The Dalles Methodist Mission was founded by Reverend Jason Lee just east of Mount Hood on the Columbia River. The Oregon History Project: Protestant Ladder. After the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869 all the telegraph lines usually followed the railroad tracks as the required relay stations and telegraph lines were much easier to maintain alongside the tracks. There is a long postscript on Ezra Meeker who revived interest in the trail early in the 20th Century. Robert Stuart of the Astorians (a group of fur traders who established Fort Astoria on the Columbia River in western Oregon) became the first white man to use what later became known as the Oregon Trail. Every year ships would come from London to the Pacific (via Cape Horn) to drop off supplies and trade goods in their trading posts in the Pacific Northwest and pick up the accumulated furs used to pay for these supplies. 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. 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. Lewis and Clark's secretly funded expedition in 1803 was part of a U.S. Government plan to open Oregon Country to settlement. Members of the party later disagreed over the size of the party, one stating 160 adults and children were in the party, while another counted 105. Amidst an overwhelming chorus of naysayers who doubted their success, the so-called "Great Migration" made it safely to Oregon. In 1841 the Bartleson-Bidwell Party was the first emigrant group credited with using the Oregon Trail to emigrate west. Our goal at Surviving The Oregon Trail is to provide helpful resources to benefit home school families, teachers and students in the areas of reading, writing, vocabulary, art, history, geography, homesteading, emergency awareness and preparedness and last but certainly not least community!. 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. Please contact each site before you go to obtain current information on closures, changes in hours, and fees. He was mapping the country for possible fur trading posts. Oregon Trail The Oregon, Mormon Pioneer and California trails all cross Wyoming in the central and most popular corridor of the transcontinental migration of the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s. Over the years many ferries were established to help get across the many rivers on the path of the Oregon Trail. The established route of the Oregon Trail begins in Independence, Missouri, and ends in Oregon City. [20] 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 Oregon Trail was little more than two ruts on the prairie, but following it guaranteed some safety. When emigration over the Oregon Trail began in earnest in about 1836, for many settlers the fort became the last stop on the Oregon Trail where they could get supplies, aid and help before starting their homestead. They increased the cost of traveling the trail by roughly $30.00 per wagon but increased the speed of the transit from about 160–170 days in 1843 to 120–140 days in 1860. Living history programs, life-sized dioramas, an amphitheater, and an interpretive trail system support the center's theme of describing life along the trail. To get there, they helped build the Lassen Branch of the Applegate-Lassen Trail by cutting a wagon road through extensive forests. From about 1811-1840 the Oregon Trail was laid down by traders and fur trappers. Nearly all of the settlers in the 1843 wagon trains arrived in the Willamette Valley by early October. [26] In 1852 there were even records of a 1,500 turkey drive from Illinois to California. One group of emigrants, the Donner Party, decided to try a new trail over the Sierra Mountains to California. The trading supplies were brought in by a large party using pack trains originating on the Missouri River. These descriptions were mainly based on the relative lack of timber and surface water. After a few days' travel they soon discovered that steep canyons, waterfalls and impassable rapids made travel by river impossible. For more than a century, the Oregon Historical Society has served as the state's collective memory, preserving a vast collection of artifacts, photographs, maps, manuscript materials, books, films, and oral histories. They used most of the York Express route through northern Canada. The Oregon Trail, the 2,000-mile (3,200 kilometer) route across the Great Plains and the through the Rocky Mountains that was the path for thousands of emigrants to the Columbia River Basin in the 1840s, had its origin, literally and figuratively, in the 1812 journey of Robert Stuart who pioneered the route essentially in reverse. Box 987, Baker City, Oregon 97814-0987 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. 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. It gave the United States what it mostly wanted, a 'reasonable' boundary and a good anchorage on the West Coast in Puget Sound. Pacific Fur Company partner Robert Stuart led a small group of men back east to report to Astor. The men were initially led by Thomas J. Farnham and called themselves the Oregon Dragoons. American fur trappers, traders, missionaries, and later settlers all worked to break this monopoly. He had a crew that dug out the gullies and river crossings and cleared the brush where needed. Learn more about significant trail figures and their impacts on history. The Oregon Trail is a historic 2,000-mile (3,264-km) trail used by American pioneers living in the Great Plains in the 19th century. This route had the disadvantages of being much too rough for wagons and controlled by the Blackfoot Indians. These new emigrants often arrived in Oregon tired, worn out, nearly penniless, with insufficient food or supplies just as winter was coming on. Following the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 the country nearly doubled in size and pushed its western edge past the Rocky Mountains. The Wagon Train of 1843: The Great Migration. Independence | Courthouse Rock | Chimney Rock | Fort Laramie | Independence Rock | Fort Bridger| In 1843, settlers of the Willamette Valley drafted the Organic Laws of Oregon organizing land claims within the Oregon Country. On the return trip in 1806 they traveled from the Columbia River to the Snake River and the Clearwater River over Lolo pass again. 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. From there they went over the Teton Range via Teton Pass and then down to the Snake River in Idaho. It could only be traveled by horseback or on foot. 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. 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. Introduction. A passable wagon trail now existed from the Missouri River to The Dalles. [25] From Salt Lake City the telegraph line followed much of the Mormon/California/Oregon trails to Omaha, Nebraska. If you don’t know where the ghost towns, Oregon Trail wagon ruts, underground tours and Native American powwows are, read on. David Dary's history of the Oregon Trail gives a good overview of the trail from the days of Lewis and Clark in 1803 to its demise in 1880 after the completion of the Transcontiental railroad. The account of his explorations in the west was published by Washington Irving in 1838. These pack trains were then used to haul out the fur bales. The "Bonneville Segment" of the State Trail is a car-free stretch of the Historic Highway located within the Waterfall Zone, which also includes segments that allow cars. In theory, the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812 restored the U.S. back to its possessions in Oregon territory. This established that the eastern part of most of the Oregon Trail was passable by wagons. In the spring of 1843, a wagon train of nearly 1,000 people organized at Independence, Missouri with plans to reach Oregon Country. 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. 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. Historic Oregon Trail Route. In 1846 the Oregon Treaty ending the Oregon boundary dispute was signed with Britain. 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). As the years passed the Oregon Trail became a heavily used corridor from the Missouri River to the Columbia River. Another trail split off from the Oregon Trail to California. Blue Mountain Crossing has discovery trails where you… 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 Oregon Trail was more than one path. 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 immigrants expected in the coming years. Though the Whitmans were forced to abandon their wagons 200 miles short of Oregon, they proved that families could go west by wheeled travel. 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. That year the British parliament passed a statute applying the laws of Upper Canada to the district and giving the Hudson's Bay Company power to enforce those laws. Between 1841 and 1869, hundreds of thousands of people traveled westward on 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. It was, however, in transit westward over the Oregon-California Trail that the wagon trains attained their most highly organized and institutionalized character. Over the next decade, gold seekers from the Midwestern United States and East Coast of the United States started rushing overland and dramatically increased traffic on the Oregon and California Trails. 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 wagons to pass through without considerable road work. 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. The fur trade business wound down to a very low level just as the Oregon trail traffic seriously began around 1840. While there was the main trail that pioneers followed to Oregon, eventually many other branches of the trail were developed as pioneers headed to different parts of Oregon Territory and California. Large losses could occur and the drovers would still make significant profit. 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 Hudson's Bay Company operating there. 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. 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. The North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company. U. S. Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers, U. S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers, "Map of Astorian expedition, Lewis and Clark expedition, Oregon Trail, etc. Ferries also helped prevent death by drowning at river crossings. They were eventually successful. This stretch of the Historic Highway State Trail: Can be accessed by people hiking, biking, or using wheelchairs. 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 prevalent in much of the Missouri and Mississippi River drainage then), extensive uncut, unclaimed forests, big rivers, potential seaports, and only a few nominally British settlers.