РефератыИностранный языкOrOregon Trail Essay Research Paper Overland pioneer

Oregon Trail Essay Research Paper Overland pioneer

Oregon Trail Essay, Research Paper


Overland pioneer route to the northwestern


United States. About 3200 km, about 2000 mi long, the


trail extended from Independence, Missouri, to the


Columbia River in Oregon. Part of the route followed the


Platte River for 870 km (540 mi) through what is now


Nebraska to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. The


trail continued along the North Platte and Sweetwater


rivers to South Pass in the Wind River Range of the Rocky


Mountains. From there the main trail went south to Fort


Bridger, Wyoming, before turning into the Bear River valley


and north to Fort Hall in present-day Idaho. In Idaho the


Oregon Trail followed the Snake River to the Salmon Falls


and then went north past Fort Boise (now Boise). The


route entered what is now Oregon, passed through the


Grande Ronde River valley, crossed the Blue Mountains


and followed the Umatilla River to the Columbia River.


Shorter and more direct routes were developed along


some parts of the trail, but they were often more difficult.


Originally, like many other main routes in the United States,


sections of the Oregon Trail had bee

n used by the Native


Americans and trappers. As early as 1742, part of the trail


in Wyoming had been blazed by the Canadian explorer


Pierre Gaultier de Varennes, sieur de La Vérendrye; the


Lewis and Clark Expedition, between 1804 and 1806,


made more of it known. The German-American fur trader


and financier John Jacob Astor, in establishing his trading


posts, dispatched a party overland in 1811 to follow the


trail of these explorers. Later, mountain men such as James


Bridger, who founded Fort Bridger in 1843, contributed


their knowledge of the trail and often acted as guides. The


first emigrant wagon train, headed by the American pioneer


physician Elijah White, reached Oregon in 1842. The trip


took the early pioneers four to six months, a journey


fraught with much hardship resulting from poor equipment,


illness, and attack by the Native Americans, for whom the


growing number of pioneers on the trail was an


ever-constant threat. At first, the termination point of the


Oregon Trail was Oregon City, Oregon; later, settlers


continued south to the fertile and valuable land in the


Willamette Valley.

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