California was already a major emigration destination before the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in 1848. This designation includes major cutoffs and alternate routes and is estimated to include 5,700 trail miles. The California NHT is a complex of trails that links Iowa and Missouri with California and Oregon. The pioneer Mormon companies of 1847, for example, completed the backbreaking work begun a year earlier by the California-bound Donner Party on the trail through Emigrant Canyon, east of Salt Lake. The routes taken by the earliest Mormon companies were almost completely within existing segments of the Oregon and California trails. The length of the designated trail is estimated at 1,300 miles. Some of these routes were used by Mormons to make their trek-“gathering to Zion,” they called it-as late as 1868. The Mormon Pioneer NHT commemorates the 1846-1847 migration of the Mormons from Illinois to Salt Lake City, Utah. Emigration along this route by covered wagon was recorded into the 1920s. Some of the greatest usage of these roads occurred during the Civil War period (1861-1865) as the trails swelled with homesteaders and those avoiding conscription. The designation suggests there are roughly 2,000 miles in this route. The Oregon NHT describes the primary routes used between 1841-1848 to emigrate between Missouri and Oregon, although there was traffic along these paths before 1841 and well after 1848. The act further allows the federal government limited authority to acquire portions of these trails from willing sellers.
However, this identification does expressly recognize the national significance of these routes and allows the federal government to assist with studying and educating the public about these important places. Designation as a National Historic Trail (NHT) is essentially an honorary distinction, providing little protection for any of the routes. The Oregon/Mormon Pioneer/California Trails have been studied and assessed according to the National Trails System Act of 1968 and have been designated as National Historic Trails.
Isolated wagon tracks across the West quickly grew into a far-reaching capillary system.
Emigrants sought out better routes as the immense traffic on the main routes strained natural resources of the fragile steppes and desert. As the West was settled, destinations multiplied, necessitating a complex network of routes.
#PONY EXPRESSO OREGON FULL#
To many, the environments of the Great Plains, Rocky Mountains and Great Basin seemed like another planet, full of strange and alien landscapes.Įmigration routes were scouted by trappers, traders, the military and early pioneers in the 1810s-1840s. As many as half a million people may have traveled this corridor in the 19th century. The trails followed the North Platte and Sweetwater rivers west to South Pass, after which they divided into various routes bound for Oregon, Utah or California. The Oregon, Mormon Pioneer and California trails all cross Wyoming in the central and most popular corridor of this migration. Wagons passing Independence Rock, Wyoming on the Oregon Trail. The great western migration has become iconic. Long-used trading and hunting routes blazed by American Indians and fur traders soon were worn deep and wide by the passage of thousands of wagons and perhaps millions of animals. The bold took what most acknowledged as the journey of a lifetime and headed west.
Whether it was Manifest Destiny, itchy feet, religious freedom, conquest, breathing room, riches, adventure, the desire to “see the elephant,” draft-dodging, cheap land or other motivations, 19th-century America looked to the vast expanses of the West to ease its national growing pains.
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