Century Arts
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WHENThe Oregon Trail was a roughly 2,000-mile route from Independence, Missouri, to Oregon City, Oregon, which was used by hundreds of thousands of American pioneers in the mid-1800s to emigrate west. The trail was arduous and snaked through Missouri and present-day Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and finally into Oregon. Without the Oregon Trail and the passing of the Oregon Donation Land Act in 1850, which encouraged settlement in the Oregon Territory, American pioneers would have been slower to settle the American West in the 19th century.
The 2,200-mile east-west trail served as a critical transportation route for emigrants traveling from Missouri to Oregon and other points west during the mid-1800s. Travelers were inspired by dreams of gold and rich farmlands, but they were also motivated by difficult economic times in the east and the diseases like yellow fever and malaria that were decimating the Midwest around 1837.
From about 1811-1840 the Oregon Trail was laid down by traders and fur trappers. It could only be traveled by horseback or on foot. By the year 1836, the first of the migrant train of wagons was put together. It started in Independence, Missouri and traveled a cleared trail that reached to Fort Hall, Idaho. Work was done to clear more and more of the trail stretching farther West and it eventually reached Willamette Valley, Oregon. Improvements on the trail in the form of better roads, ferries, bridges and ‘cutouts’ made the trip both safer and faster each year. There were several starting points in Nebraska Territory, Iowa and Missouri. These met along the lower part of Plate River Valley which was located near Fort Yearn.
“Oregon Trail- Story of Us.” 7 Jan. 2014.
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