Interesting Facts About The Oregon Trail Route

• The Oregon Trail route ran approximately 2,000 miles west from Missouri toward the Rocky Mountains to the Willamette Valley. A trail to California branched off in southern Idaho.
• The Oregon National Historic Trail began as an unconnected series of trails used by Native Americans. Fur traders expanded the route to transport pelts to trading posts and rendezvous.
• In the 1830s missionaries followed the still faint trail along the Platte River and the Snake to establish church connections in the Northwest.
• A combination of economic and political events in the 1840s converged to start a large scale migration west on what was then known as "The Oregon Road." Large scale migration started in 1843, when a wagon train of over 800 people with 120 wagons and 5,000 cattle made the five month journey.
• In 1847 Mormons escaping persecution headed toward Salt Lake, and the discovery of gold in California in 1848 sent a wave of fortune seekers west. Military posts, trading posts, shortcuts, and spur roads sprang off the Oregon Trail over the next three decades.
• The Central Pacific Railroad connected California to the continent in 1869, and the Oregon Shortline finished a railroad from Portland, Oregon, to the Union Pacific railroad in Wyoming in 1884.
• Wagon trains soon gave way to modern transportation. The Oregon Trail became a route for eastward cattle drives, but by the 20th century was considered part of a historic past. The image of covered wagons and heroic pioneers had become an American icon.