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As the Oregon-bound emigrants pushed across the wide open American prairie, they worried. Would Indians attack? Would buffalo stampede? Would disease strike?
Yet, at the same time, the emigrants were filled with exhilaration, because they were embarking on a great adventure, perhaps the greatest quest any American family has attempted.
For many who left from Independence, the first night's camp would likely be here at the Shawnee mission. This Methodist outpost was built in 1839 for the purpose of teaching English and agriculture to the children of the Shawnee tribe.
Here, the emigrants might encounter an Indian for the first time. But the Shawnee were not native to this area, they had been moved here from the East.
For centuries, they had been great hunters. But here, they were being taught to farm.
In the trail's early years, all the land from here to the Rockies was Indian territory. And so the emigrant now traveled at their own risk. For those first pioneers, there was no US Army charged to help them out, no Sheriff to keep the peace. They were on their own.
After a few days on the trail, the emigrants would settle into a well-defined daily routine-- awake before sunup, yoke the oxen, cook the breakfast, and hit the trail.
There was an hour break for lunch. And at about 6:00 PM, they set up camp. The emigrants did circle their wagons, but it wasn't for protection against the Indians. The circle provided a convenient corral for loose animals.
Almost immediately, the campfires started burning and dinner was begun. Cooking bread over a campfire was something of a challenge. The result was usually burnt on the outside and doughy on the inside. Even worse, keeping bugs and dirt out of the mix was nearly impossible.
The biggest problem was finding fuel for the campfire. For the first few weeks, there was plenty of wood along the way. But soon, trees were scarce. And there was only one alternative-- buffalo dung.
One account indicates about three and half bushels to make one good campfire. The women, usually with their aprons, would go around collecting this stuff. And bring it to the common stock. And then, a common fuel center. And they'd have one big bonfire for a big train, or they could have individual fires.
If they were lucky, the emigrants would have quail or buffalo with their bread. But most often they ate bacon, day after day, week after week.
Reverend Samuel Parker--
Dry bread and bacon consisted our breakfast, dinner, and supper. The bacon we cooked when we could obtain wood for fire. But when nothing but green grass could be seen, we ate our bacon without cooking.
A lot of these people were farmers and they weren't hunters. And there was instance after instance that people go out trying to hunt to find something and they have no luck. They're shooting at a buffalo over the hill and can't hit it. So a lot of them had to rely on what they had. There was a lot of beans and bacon, and that sort of thing.
By 9:00 PM, they would bed down for the night. Some families had tents, but most just slept right on the ground. Pure exhaustion helped them get to sleep. But it wasn't comfortable.
The Indians
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Niles Searls--
We rose this morning from our bed upon the ground with sensations similar to that, I imagine, must pervade the frame of the inebriate after a week spree.
At 5:00 AM, the whole process started again-- 15 miles a day for nearly 6 months.
The first few weeks on the trail were relatively easy. There was plenty of grass and water, and no mountains to contend with. Spirits ran so high that when the emigrants came to Blue Mound, many raised to the top just to get a better view of the prairie ahead.
But their enthusiasm was quickly dampened when it came time to cross the turbulent Kansas River.
In a dry year, the river could be forded. But the emigrants were not often that lucky.
In the trail's early years, most were forced to caulk their wagons and float them across, an operation that could take up to five days. It was an imperfect solution. Many drowned in the process.
Edward Lennox--
William Vaughn was swimming the river when he was suddenly seized with cramps. And with a quick cry for help, went down. Nesmith brought him up, but Vaughn clutched his rescuer, so that Nesmith was in danger of being strangled.
To this day, I can still hear Nesmith cry, let me go. I will save you.
Both survived.
By 1844, there was a ferry crossing here. The charge? $4 per wagon and $0.10 per person. It was worth it.
A week or so after the difficult Kansas crossing, the emigrants were rewarded by the beauty of a popular campsite known as Alcove Spring.
Edwin Bryant--
About 3/4 of a mile from our camp, we found a large spring of water, as cold and pure as if it had just been melted from ice. We named this Alcove Spring.
Edwin Bryant wasn't just any Western emigrant, he was a member of the Donner Party.
The Donner Party would be delayed here at Alcove Springs, and several more times along their trip to California. Eventually, the group would become stranded in the snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains-- Weak, starving, dying. They ate their cattle, then their shoes. And eventually, the flesh and brains of their friends who had died.
The story shocked the nation, and it was on the mind of every emigrant who went West in following years.
Carvings by members of the Donner party were seen by many of the later emigrants when they camped at Alcove Spring, a chilling reminder to hurry up.
As the pioneers continued North, they were impressed by the pastoral beauty of the area. Many were tempted to end the journey here and begin farming.
James Pritchard--
The scenery was so inviting that it induced us to take a stroll. We found beautiful spots and romantic situations.
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But James Pritchard kept moving, as did everyone else. It wasn't until the late 1850s that the first settlement came to this region, in the form of a dozen or so stage stations, like this one at Rock Creek.
Like the others, Rock Creek Station was built primarily to serve the stagecoach and Pony Express. But the emigrants did stop here to purchase supplies, or camp.
Matthew Field--
We are all very well and growing fat. Not on buffalo however, for the lords of the prairie are far in advance of us. We had turtle soup last night for supper, and that ain't bad, even when eating out of tin plates and squatting on the grass.
Rock Creek Station owner David McCanles later added to his profits by building a toll bridge here. The charge? Between $0.10 and $0.50, depending on how well-off the emigrant family looked that day.
By now, several feeder trails had combined, and the trail was getting crowded. The emigrants reported sighting as many as 700 wagons at a time.
The wagon trains looked like a series of beads all the way across the prairie. Because it just went almost as far as you could see. And it was just wagon after wagon after wagon.
The most severe congestion began in 1849, thanks to the California Gold Rush. For 1,200 miles, the gold- hungry 49ers used the same trail as the Oregon-bound pioneers.
To the Northwest, a week away was the Platte. It was unlike any river they had seen before, miles wide and only a few inches deep.
James Evans--
The water is so completely filled with glittering particles of mica that its shining waves look to be rich with floating gold.
The river wasn't filled with gold, but it was filled with wriggling bugs. The emigrants routinely skimmed the insects off their drinking water as best they could. But it was the unseen bacteria in the water that caused the emigrants the most trouble, giving them prolonged bouts of diarrhea.
Then, in the distance, a flag. It was Fort Kearny, the first semblance of civilization for weeks. But the emigrants' excitement quickly turned to disappointment. Fort Kearny was not the grand walled fortification they expected. It was, instead, a collection of ramshackle buildings, most made of sod. The construction was so crude that snakes often slithered through the walls and into the beds of the soldiers stationed there. But the enlisted men were not overly refined, anyway.
No question about it, they'd have insects of every description, and snakes as well. And it must have been a pretty miserable life for the enlisted men.
The Fort Kearny blacksmith. For many emigrants, he was the most important man here. Thanks to a changing climate, the wooden part of the wagon wheels was shrinking, and the iron rims often needed to be refitted.
There were blacksmiths at all the forts along the trail and a few freelancers in between, but the emigrants were wise to have work done now rather than later. As they went West, prices got much higher.
Fort Kearny was the first military post built to protect the Oregon Trail emigrants. Yet, the cannons here were mostly just for show. Native tribes in the area were friendly.
Still, Fort Kearny was important as a wayside throughout the emigration period. Many emigrants purchased food at the Fort. And nearly everyone took advantage of the Fort's reliable mail service.
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In late May, as many as 2,000 emigrants and 10,000 oxen might pass through in a single day.
After Fort Kearny, the landscape began to change. Grasses gave way to sagebrush, song birds were replaced by rattlesnakes. It became dry, dusty, hot.
The emigrants had learned about this region in grammar school, a place maps labeled the Great American Desert. But the desert myth was greatly exaggerated. Easterners, like writer W.J. Snelling, conjured up images of sand dunes and wastelands.
From Lake Winnipeg to Mexico, 9/10 of the area is as bare of vegetation as the desert of the Sahara.
The Sahara, of course, is nothing like Nebraska. Snelling and the other doomsayers had never been West.
There was one grain of truth in the desert myth, however. The climate did get dryer as the emigrants moved West. Without the Platte waters nearby, the trip would not have been feasible.
As the emigrants pushed West along the Platte, they would likely encounter another great Western legend, but this one was true.
William Kilgore--
Buffalo extended the whole length of our afternoon's travel. Not in hundreds, but in solid phalanx. I estimated two million.
These immense herds sometimes blocked the way of the emigrants. One wagon train had to wait two hours for stampeding buffalo to pass by.
The emigrants' first reaction was to temporarily abandon the journey and rush off on a buffalo hunt. Not for food, for sport.
They all enjoyed the buffalo hunt. A lot of them just shot and shot and shot. I don't know how successful they were. Most of them it doesn't seem to have been very successful.
Unlike the Indians, who use nearly every part of the buffalo, the emigrants often left the carcasses to rot, contributing to near extinction of the species.
The trail along the Platte bisected two major Indian tribes, the Cheyenne to the North and the Pawnee to the South. The emigrants worried about both, but the expected Indian attacks did not come.
That's Hollywood. Most of the accounts in the first few years are of friendly Indians, being quite sociable.
In fact, there were many instances of Indian kindness, helping pull out stuck wagons, rescuing drowning emigrants, even rounding up lost cattle. Stories of Indian goodwill have not become widely known, but they showed up in many emigrant diaries.
I have a very interesting diary of this woman who headed West. And her husband was out there and she finally decided she was going out. And she wrapped up her three or four kids and sold the farm back in Illinois. And she got into the Cainsville area of the Council Bluffs area. And she hired a man to go with them to take care of the cattle.
But when they got there and crossed the Missouri River, suddenly he says, I'm not going. I'm going back. And this kid is telling the story and he says, my mom put us back into the tent. And he says, I was awake as she was sitting out there by the fire. And she kept awake and sitting there. And he said, I was wondering whether we were going on or not. And finally, he says, the next morning she says, get up children. She says, you've got to help get the oxen, and get some wood, and so on. Because we're going to have to have breakfast before we leave. And you have to be the men in this crowd.
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And he said they went on. And well, they kept going, but they kept being late with wagon trains. They'd drag in at 8, 9, maybe 10 o'clock at night. And they couldn't keep up. So they'd catch on with the next wagon train and try to go on with that.
And by the time they got into Wyoming, suddenly a Sioux party, apparently a war party, came down. And these men-- all men, Indian men. And they looked at this woman with her kids and she was brave as could be. And they traveled with her. Because they said they were in a place where they might have trouble with the Cheyenne through this area. And they stayed with her for four days, traveling all through this area of Wyoming until they felt she was safe. And then they waved her m bye and killed an antelope or something and left it there for her, and drove off.
But most of the encounters with the Indians were simple business transactions. The emigrants offered clothes, tobacco, or rifles in exchange for Indian horses, or food.
Indians looked on the emigrants as another means for their trade. But once they started seeing more and more of them come, they started becoming alarmed.
The Indians were alarmed for good reason. Within a few years, the emigrants had overgrazed the prairie grasses, burned all the available firewood, and depleted the buffalo.
Soon, many tribes along the Platte were impoverished, starving.
The emigrants worried a great deal about possible Indian attacks, but very few were ever actually killed by the native tribes. A more likely cause of death for the typical pioneer was an accident.
The emigrant wagons didn't have any safety features. If someone fell under the massive wagon wheels, death was instant. Many lost their lives that way. Most often, the victims were children.
Edward Lennox--
A little boy fell over the front end of the wagon during our journey. In his case, the great wheels rolled over the child's head, crushing it to pieces.
Even more common than crushings were accidental shootings.
They would have [INAUDIBLE] and pistols, as well as rifles, shotguns. And yet, safety devices for these guns were very primitive. And any number of emigrants died or were seriously injured by accidental gunshot. Either somebody else was fiddling with them, or it would be half-cocked and go off in the wagon. But it's surprising how many people died from that cause.
Great thunderstorms also took their toll. A half dozen emigrants were killed by lightning strikes. Many others were injured by hail the size of apples. Pounding rains were especially difficult for the emigrants because there was no shelter on the open plains and the covered wagons eventually leaked.
The trip for most people was an ordeal. More than they bargained for, I'm sure. But most of them had the guts to stick it out, either get there or die in the effort.
Those who did die were buried in a hurry. There was often no time for an elaborate funeral, no time to mourn.
Making matters worse were animals that regularly dug up the dead and scattered the trail with human bones and body parts.
Agnes Stewart--
We camped at a place where a women had been buried and the wolves dug her up. Her hair was there with a comb still in it. She had been buried too shallow. It seems a dreadful fate. But what is the difference? One
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cannot feel after the spirit has flown.
By now, most of the emigrants had been following the south side of the Platte for nearly 200 miles. But the main branch of the river was now arching south. And so here, the emigrants had to cross.
Agnes Stewart--
I was very much afraid, but we all got over safe enough. David Love's wagon fell into a hole. James and Charles were carried under the oxen, but came up on the other side. Dave lost his cap, Charles lost his hat, John lost his whip. It was frightful.
But for most, crossing the South Platte was not overly difficult. A much bigger challenge was 15 miles ahead-- the infamous hill at Ash Hollow. Here, the wagons faced the steepest descent of the entire trail so far.
The challenge-- let your wagon down slowly, without crashing.
They'd have men grab the wheels and keep them from revolving. Everybody collaborated, trying to keep it from a runaway.
Once in a while, there'd be a runaway or they'd break loose and animals would break their bones and the wagons would crack up. This happened occasionally.
But there was a reward at the bottom of the hill-- Ash Hollow. Here was fresh, clean water, a luxury they had not tasted for weeks. And the last tree they'd seen was over 100 miles back. Most of the wagon trains would rest here for a day or two.
Four days to the west, Courthouse Rock, and its companion Jail Rock. To an emigrant who had never seen a mountain or even a bluff, this was indeed, stunning.
They were so enraptured by this bizarre geologic feature, most took a side trip of several miles on foot just to get a closer look.
A lot of them really did a lot of sightseeing on the way. It's kind of amazing to think that some of them would walk two or three or four, five miles off the trail just to go see a site, like they did at Courthouse Rock.
But Courthouse was just the beginning in a chain of bizarre geologic wonders. Just a few miles further on was the strangest of all-- Chimney Rock.
Today, the spire stands 325 feet above the plain. But during the time of the migration, Chimney Rock was nearly 100 feet higher. It was the most spectacular landmark on the entire trail. To many, the eighth wonder of the world.
In their enthusiasm, some tried to climb the massive rock, but none got higher than the base.
The last in this series of geologic wonders was a group of formations known as Scotts Bluffs. Unlike Chimney Rock and Courthouse Rock, Scotts Bluffs were something of an obstacle for the emigrants. In the early years, the trail veered south, avoiding the bluffs. But after 1850, a shorter route through the Bluffs at Mitchell Pass gained favor.
In some places, the ruts at Mitchell Pass cut eight feet deep thanks to heavy traffic and soft stone. It was a treacherous and difficult cut-off. And in the end, it was about the same distance as the old route.
50 miles further along, the emigrants would face a much more dangerous obstacle-- the Laramie River. The water here was only four feet deep, but deceptively fast.
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In 1850 alone, 19 people drowned here trying to cross. But those who made it were rewarded handsomely. Just across the river was Fort Laramie.
It was a welcomed sight, the first sign of civilization in six weeks. A unique respite from the endless wilderness.
During the migration period, Fort Laramie was of the greatest importance as a shelter, as a place to camp safely within the protection of the soldiers, and as a place to get supplies. A place to reorganize your outfit or reduce your wagon down to two wheels. Or just rest a while. So Fort Laramie was a great morale builder.
Fort Laramie marked the end of the easiest segment of the trail. Up to now, the road had been flat, morale had been high, the emigrants were full of energy, optimism.
All that was about to change.
[MUSIC PLAYING]