Oregon Trail

Overview
To get to the rich new lands of the West Coast, there were two options: some sailed around the southern tip of South America during a six-month voyage, but 400,000 others walked there on an overland route of more than 2,000 miles (3,200 km); their wagon trains usually left from Missouri. They moved in large groups under an experienced wagon-master, bringing their clothing, farm supplies, weapons, and animals. These wagon trains followed major rivers, crossed prairies and mountains, and typically ended in Oregon and California. Pioneers generally attempted to complete the journey during a single warm season, usually for six months. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Trails were cleared further and further west, eventually reaching to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. This network of wagon trails leading to the Pacific Northwest was later called the Oregon Trail. The eastern half of the route was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Mormon Trail (from 1847), and Bozeman Trail  (from 1863) before they turned off to their separate destinations.

In the "Wagon Train of 1843", some 700 to 1,000 emigrants headed for Oregon.

Description
The Oregon Trail was the accepted Covered Wagon route to the Northwest from the latter half of the 1840s on. Migrants who wished to follow this line of march gather either at Westport Landing, Missouri, known known as Kansas City, or at Kanesville, which lay a farther two hundred miles up the Missouri River and was located in Iowa. If the latter settlement be chosen as the starting point, a ferry trip across the Missouri got the journey under way. After about twenty five miles of prairie travel, the Platte came into view, and the trail followed the north bank of the river as it wound its way through Nebraska. At Grand Island, migrant wagons that had started from Westport Landing rolled in from the southeast to cross the Platte and join the main trail. Keeping to the valley of the Platte, migrants snaked past Fort Kearney and pushed on towards the Northwest. The river flowing slowly east on their left flank became the North Platte, and rough wooden markers, at too-short intervals alongside the trail, made the migrants painfully aware that cholera had not long since passed this way. Other markers were the twin buttes of the Courthouse Rock and Jail Rock, then the stone finger of Chimney Rock, and later, the massive pile of Scotts Bluff. The Wyoming line was crossed and after a further twenty miles of travel up the valley of the North Platte the trail passed Fort Laramie. At Casper, the trail left the North Platte and pushed across country to cross the Sweetwater in the shadow of the doomed mass of Independence Rock. After leaving Fort Bridger, the trail arrowed Northwest passing up the Bear River Valley to reach Fort Hall in southeastern Idaho. At Fort Hall the migrants crossed the Snake then followed the north bank of the river until they reached Old Fort Bolse on the Idaho Oregon border. Here the river swung directly north and it had to be crossed once more to follow the trail into Oregon.