Life on the trail was not easy. Many faced family deaths to sicknesses such as cholera, measles, and smallpox. Starvation, harsh weather conditions, and travel accidents were common and took their toll, no matter which trail pioneers chose to travel or how carefully they prepared.
Although the original Oregon Trail led weary travelers from Independence, Missouri, to where Oregon City is located today, now, the Oregon Trail starts in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and doesn't end until Cannon Beach, Oregon, turning it into a full cross-country trip.
Stream and river crossings, steep descents and ascents, violent storms, and the persistent threat of disease among large groups of travelers were the most common challenges. Disease was the greatest threat on the trail, especially cholera, which struck wagon trains in years of heavy travel.
The mainstays of a pioneer diet were simple fare like potatoes, beans and rice, hardtack (which is simply flour, water, 1 teaspoon each of salt and sugar, then baked), soda biscuits (flour, milk, one t. each of carbonate of soda and salt), Johnny cakes, cornbread, cornmeal mush, and bread.
Children walked alongside the wagon most of the time. They cooked dinner, sang songs, washed their clothing, and offered school lessons to the children. The Oregon Trail was little more than two ruts on the prairie, but following it guaranteed some safety. Another trail split off from the Oregon Trail to California.
Toys and Games: Kids had to leave their toys and friends behind. But they created new games. One of their favorites was buffalo turd toss. Kids tossed turds (dried buffalo poop) like frisbees.
Occasionally they had fresh fish or buffalo or antelope hunted along the way. Many of families took along a milk cow so they were able to have fresh milk. Children had regular chores while on the trail. Many kids herded the animals, and both boys and girls sometimes drove the ox teams pulling their wagons.
They had races and played games such as Sheep Over the River, Hide and Seek, Pull the Rope, and Steal-Stick Duck-Stones. They also sang and danced. They made dolls from corn cobs and rags and used a bladder balloon for ball games.
What was life like for pioneer children on the Oregon Trail? Many children made the five month trek west with their families. It's estimated that 40,000 of the emigrants were children.
Not too far past the end of the Barlow Road, the wagon trains camped a final time on the broad creekside meadow near the Willamette River. This spot, Oregon City's Abernethy Green, marked the traditional End of the Oregon Trail.
The pioneers would take with them as many supplies as possible. They took cornmeal, bacon, eggs, potatoes, rice, beans, yeast, dried fruit, crackers, dried meat, and a large barrel of water that was tied to the side of the wagon.
The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840, and was only passable on foot or by horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho.
Shootings, drownings, being crushed by wagon wheels, and injuries from handling domestic animals were the common killers on the trail. Wagon accidents were the most prevalent. Both children and adults sometimes fell off or under wagons and were crushed under the wheels.
The game is free in the Android Market (that's zero buckskins for you pioneer types) and available now for all recent versions of Android.
The Oregon Trail is a series of educational computer games. The first game was originally developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971 and produced by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium (MECC) in 1974.
The Oregon Trail was the most popular way to get to Oregon Country from about 1843 through the 1870s. The trail started in Missouri and covered 2,000 miles before ending in Oregon City.
The length of the wagon trail from the Missouri River to Willamette Valley was about 2,000 miles (3,200 km). It normally took four to six months to traverse the length of the Oregon Trail with wagons pulled by oxen.
Between 1840 and 1869, the year the Transcontinental Railroad was completed, more than 420,000 pioneers went West on the Oregon Trail.
Wagon train, caravan of wagons organized by settlers in the United States for emigration to the West during the late 18th and most of the 19th centuries.
Nobody traveled the Oregon Trail alone. Instead, travelers formed groups so they could help and protect each other. Often, relatives or people from the same town would travel together.
Before 1,000 settlers set out on the Oregon Trail on this day in 1843, a small band of pioneers - including Narcissa Whitman, the first woman to travel the route - forged their path.
The hardships of weather, limited diet, and exhaustion made travelers very vulnerable to infectious diseases such as cholera, flu, dysentery, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, and typhoid fever which could spread quickly through an entire wagon camp.
Those heading to Oregon continued northwest, while those traveling to California went southwestward through the deserts of northern Utah and Nevada before crossing the Sierra Nevada range and descending into the Sacramento area of California and beyond.
Along the way, many pioneers faced very real dangers such as disease, drowning, runaway covered wagons on steep hillsides, accidental discharge of weapons, and hostile encounters. For many Native Americans, the western expansion meant risks and changes to their way of life.
