The Oregon trail
Oregon trail
Discovers and Explorers
In 1803 president Thomas Jefferson organized a secret mission to send a small party overland to the pacific.
William Ashley in 1822 put an ad in a St Louis paper.
By the late 1830s beavers hat were going out of style in New York and London.
Jumping Off
They unloaded their wagons at any small towns.
No one died of cholera in St Joseph that year.
Most emigrants loaded their wagons onto stream ships
The Route west
The first emigrants to Oregon came by ship before the trail was established.
The Oregon Trail generally follows the Platte River to its headwaters.
The Oregon Trail then follows the Snake River until it reached the Columbia.
Power
Horses were quickly rejected because they could not live off prairie grasses along the way.
Most of the emigrants decided on oxen.
Oxen were slow about 2 miles per hour.
Hardships
Hundreds drowned trying to cross the Kansas, North Platte, and Columbia River.
Most of the people walked barefooted on the 2,000 mile journey.
A half dozen emigrants were killed by lightning strikes.
Camping
There was an hour break for lunch and at 6:00pm they set up for camp
Cooking bread over a campfire was something of a challenge.
If they were lucky the emigrants would have quail or buffalo with their bread.
Fun With buffalo dung
Frisbees were not made out of plastic they were made out of buffalo dung.
Buffalo dung was burned for fuel.
It made an odor free smell
Native Americans
They helped pull stuck wagons, Rescued drowning emigrants, even rounding lost cattle.
Emigrants worried about attacks but the Native Americans were nice and helpful.
Native American started to fight back when they could not take it anymore.
Quick facts
They traveled a total of 15 mile per day.
They traveled a total of 2,000 miles total.
They mostly brought 200 pounds of flour, 150 pounds of bacon, 10 pounds of coffee, 20 pounds of sugar and 10 pounds of salt. A family of 4 would need over a thousand pounds of food to sustain them on the 2,000 mile journey.
My Life on the Trail
It was cold when we left Independence. I was afraid what might happen to my family. We were traveling with my Family. It started raining and it was nasty. When we went across the river the water was cold and my dad helped us across. I was so cold. My feet were cold too. their were so many people there in Independence. After we went on for a couple more days. We saw so many cool things. It started to get hotter as we headed west. As we set up our camp fire we started to fall asleep. The next day I rode on the wagon because I was so tired and I read my books about the wild. After 4 months we finally made it was so cool I wish I could stay their forever. Then we started our journey again. And it started to thunder then lighting then we stopped and took a rest for the day. That was my journey on the Oregon trail