Answers questions regarding the Oregon Trail and the circumstances surrounding it.

A new American journey.

In the spring of 1843, nearly one thousand people gathered in Independence, Missouri. They came from all over the eastern United States, and many had to sell most of their possessions to afford the trip. Yet their journey was just beginning. the group set out for Oregon Country, a four- to six-month trek across plains, mountains, valleys, and rivers. Not everyone survived the difficult trip. Still, before the end of the 1800s, many more wagon trains would travel the Oregon Trail to reach what became the western United States. So why were Americans moving west? What hardships would they face on the journey? And who blazed the Oregon Trail? Discover the facts about this important trail west and how it affected U.S. history.

A major one-volume history of the Oregon Trail from its earliest beginnings to the present, by a prize-winning historian of the American West. Starting with an overview of Oregon Country in the early 1800s, a vast area then the object of international rivalry among Spain, Britain, Russia, and the United States, David Dary gives us the whole sweeping story of those who came to explore, to exploit, and, finally, to settle there. Using diaries, journals, company and expedition reports, and newspaper accounts, David Dary takes us inside the experience of the continuing waves of people who traveled the Oregon Trail or took its cutoffs to Utah, Nevada, Montana, Idaho, and California. He introduces us to the fur traders who set up the first “forts” as centers to ply their trade; the missionaries bent on converting the Indians to Christianity; the mountain men and voyageurs who settled down at last in the fertile Willamette Valley; the farmers and their families propelled west by economic bad times in the East; and, of course, the gold-seekers, Pony Express riders, journalists, artists, and entrepreneurs who all added their unique presence to the land they traversed. We meet well-known figures–John Jacob Astor, Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, John Frémont, the Donners, and Red Cloud, among others–as well as dozens of little-known men, women, and children who jotted down what they were seeing and feeling in journals, letters, or perhaps even on a rock or a gravestone. Throughout, Dary keeps us informed of developments in the East and their influence on events in the West, among them the building of the transcontinental railroad and the efforts of the far western settlements to become U.S. territories and eventually states. Above all, The Oregon Trail offers a panoramic look at the romance, colorful stories, hardships, and joys of the pioneers who made up this tremendous and historic migration.

Published in 1845, this guidebook for pioneers is a reproduction of one of the most collectible books about California and the Western movement. It was the guidebook used by the Donner Party on their fateful journey. In addition, because Hastings' shortcut route through the Rockies produced such tragedy, the War Department commissioned The Prairie Traveler.

Travel along the Oregon Trail with the pioneers who dared to "face the elephant" as they moved west in search of a new life. Compiled from the trail diaries and memoirs that document this momentous period in American history, Oregon Trail Stories is a fascinating look at the great American migration of the 19th century.