Prairie Schooners Heading West

Punctuated by exhilaration, child birth, disaster and death traveling the Oregon Trail was mostly tedium. Walking, walking, walking, riding in a bone jolting wagon, herding livestock, caring for children, nursing the ill and injured, preparing meals, tending lame and ill animals, mending clothes and wagons, these all became routine during the 2000 mile journey.

As the fever to head west increased, the emigrants on the Oregon Trail heading to Oregon, Utah and California burgeoned. In 1841, just 58 pioneers made the journey. By 1850 the number had swelled to 52,500. The peak year was 1852 with 70,000 immigrants.