20 Facts That Show The Reality Of Life On The Oregon Trail

Large numbers of pioneers set off on the Oregon Trail aboard their covered wagon from Independence, Missouri planning to end up in Oregon City, Oregon and other western destinations. That meant they had something like a 2,000 mile journey ahead of them. Drawn by horses, mules or oxen the wagons could cover 20 miles on a good day. But sometimes it could be a lot less.

The pace was painfully slow. Don’t forget the pioneers had to take their wagons across the Rockies and other difficult terrain such as the Blue Mountains. That could mean hauling fully-packed wagons with ropes up steep slopes. And the whole journey could take anything up to six months. Today you can travel from Independence to Oregon City in a couple of days. Or take the plane – the flight lasts just hours.

When you think of bacon today, you’ll envisage thinly sliced, cured rashers of pork, delicious in a sandwich or breakfast taco after being fried or grilled. And generally you buy it ready cut in packets from the grocery store. But the bacon that Oregon Trail pioneers took with them was radically different from the tasty rashers we eat in modern times.

The pioneers ate a lot of bacon, in fact, because cured pork was something that could remain edible for a long time. That was key for people embarking on a journey that might last six months. Sides of pork would be preserved in huge barrels of brine. So you’d cut a piece off the pork side and soak it in water to take off some of the salt. It would then be palatable. Hopefully.

There was plenty of stunning natural beauty along the Oregon Trail if you had the time and energy to appreciate it. But culture was in short supply. Yet there was a thriving world of graffiti, which by today’s standards could be modern art. While walls were in short supply, there was no shortage of towering rocks and steep cliff faces along the way.

These natural features were the very things that the pioneers used as canvases for their writing and doodles. One notable site was the imposing 128-foot granite bluff in Wyoming known as Independence Rock. It was always a welcome sight for pioneers as it was the halfway mark of the journey. The nearby Sweetwater River offered a good stopping place, and thousands left their mark on the rock over the years. 

There’s no denying that travelling the Oregon Trail could be a dangerous, even deadly, pursuit. The mythology of the Trail points the finger at attacks by Native Americans. But the reality was something entirely different. Local tribes like the Pawnee and the Shoshone peoples often helped the pioneers as guides.

Another danger of the trail was accidental injury or death. Perils included river drownings, injuries caused by heavy wagons or even unintentional shootings. But far and away the most common cause of death was serious illness. Diseases such as smallpox, cholera and dysentery caused most of the 20,000 fatalities that happened. 

When people set off on the Oregon Trail, most were heading on a one-way journey to an entirely new life. The temptation therefore was to take as many of their worldly possessions as possible. But most people had just the one wagon to try and pack their belongings into. Not to mention that they had to take enough food with them to last six months. 

So sometimes people packed too much. And as the journey unfolded, they began to regret some of their baggage choices, as well as some of the newer purchases they’d made. This resulted in them simply dumping belongings at the side of the trail, and a new form of commerce emerged. Unscrupulous traders would gather abandoned goods and sell them. But perhaps we should think of them as early recyclers.

If you think of the Oregon Trail as a single route across America, you’re not seeing the full picture. The truth was that although the general direction of the trail ran from east to west, it had many variations in both its track and its destinations. And despite the trail’s name, Oregon was not even the most common final stop.

In his 2016 book The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey, Rinker Buck wrote that the pioneers “didn’t follow a single set of ruts worn into the prairie… [The trail] was really just an aggregated landscape that the pioneers followed across the plains and then the high deserts.” Many left the route that led to Oregon and headed for Utah or California, the latter being popular during the Gold Rush. 

Deciding to up sticks from the relative security of the East and head off into an unknown future in the West aboard a creaking wagon took a lot of guts. And the adversity pioneers faced as they travelled across uncharted territory is not to be underestimated. The travelers faced extreme storms, hostile terrain, disease and hunger as they pursued their dreams.

So what kept the pioneers motivated? A key factor was the Homestead Act of 1862. Under the legislation, anyone could assert their rights to 160 acres of unclaimed public land. There was a small administration fee, and the claimant had to agree to farm the land and build a house on it within five years. Free land! An irresistible offer for many. 

Those embarking on the Oregon Trail were told to travel lightly. Forget about the piano, the furniture and the bedstead. Other items were far more important. Food for example. When it came to it, beans, bacon and flour would be far more desirable than a few sticks of furniture.

Essentials included as much as 200 pounds of flour, 75 pounds of bacon and 30 pounds of crackers – and the list went on. Plus you’d need clothing, cooking utensils and tools. The aim was to keep the total baggage down to 2,000 pounds. It may sound a lot, but remember the supplies and equipment had to be sufficient for six months. 

Health and safety measures in the mid-19th century weren’t like today’s. Plus the dangers of accidents were ever present on the trail itself. One prime source of peril came from the very vehicles that the pioneers drove across the wilderness. You really did not want to fall under one of the large wheels as it bucked along. That could lead to serious injury, even death.

Then there were hazardous but unavoidable river crossings. These were all the more dangerous after heavy rains had swelled the waters. Plus accidental shootings were surprisingly common. Livestock posed risks as well. A kick from a mule or a horse could cause serious injury. Yup, it seems that a moment’s inattention on the Oregon Trail could have deadly results. 

Out in the open, humans are at the mercy of whatever the weather throws at them. And we know the climate varies enormously from season to season. This meant that there was a right time and a very wrong time to set off on the trail. Mistiming the start of your journey could be a mistake you’d live to regret.

Yep, starting your journey early in the year was ill-advised. It would mean that there would not be enough grass along the trail. So the animals you needed to draw your wagon would possibly sicken and die. But then again, leaving too late in the year could mean you’d be stuck at the top of the Rockies in the depths of winter. Thus April was generally regarded as the prime time to set off.

Pioneers traveled in family groups, kids and all. But what sort of experience was it for the children? Answer: Not great. A journey that lasts for up to six months is tedious enough for an adult, but for a child it must have seemed like an eternity. The adults would have been concentrated on negotiating the hazards of the trail, with precious little time to entertain the junior members.

At least at the end of the day there would be some time for the children. Some of that could be spent in catching up with missed schooling, although that perhaps didn’t thrill the kids much. The best any parent could say at the end of their journey was that their children had survived. Grimly, not all did.

It’s popularly believed that most of the travelers on the Oregon Trail were aboard what were called Conestoga wagons. These were the large wagons with canvas stretched on iron hoops. But in fact the lumbering Conestogas were ill-suited to the harsh terrain. The most commonly used transport was the prairie schooner which was more agile but also smaller.

The prairie schooners were usually around four feet wide and 12 feet long, so hardly spacious. But their size meant they were more easily pulled by mules or oxen. Most people tended to walk beside their wagons. There was little space for passengers and the wagons jolted and jerked as they crossed the stone-strewn ground. Imagine those tired legs!

Long journeys can make people tip over the edge, and the Oregon Trail was nothing if not long. Day after day of crossing seemingly endless prairies under a never-ending sky. Then arduous treks across the hostile terrain of the Rockies and the Blue Mountains, an ordeal then went on and on. It would be enough to drive anyone mad. 

And then there were the undeniable dangers. Accidents, disease, terrifying storms – all of those could be just around the corner. Plus, too often death reared its ugly head so that bereavement and grief were not uncommon experiences. In some ways it’s a wonder that most people got to the end of the trail without suffering a breakdown.

We know that travel along the Oregon Trail was bedeviled by hazards. One of the worst of those was the weather. In summer, the baking sun shone down on a landscape with little in the way of shade. In the winter, freezing conditions and snowstorms in the mountains could lead to frostbite and even death from hypothermia.

Violent storms presented one of the greatest hazards of all. These could bring deadly lightning strikes and massive hailstones. Plus torrential rain could lead to flooding. Unbridged rivers were shallow until raging torrents swept down from higher ground. Thus river crossings could result in drownings. And wagons could be held up for days on end until river levels subsided.

When we think of the pioneers struggling along the Oregon Trail, we should remember that they were certainly not crossing uninhabited territory. Because Native Americans had been living there for generations. Some of the tribes were devastated by the appearance of large numbers emigrating from the East. The cause of the suffering was not outright aggression – it was disease.

One especially bad episode wreaked havoc among the Cayuse people. An 1847 outbreak of measles, originating from pioneers, killed nearly 50 percent of them. The anger this caused prompted the Cayuse to attack a nearby settlement, the Whitman Mission, killing 14 people. This resulted in the Cayuse War which rumbled on for the next seven years. 

As if storms, disease and accidents weren’t enough to deal with, there was another danger that Oregon Trail pioneers had to face. Snakes. Actually most of the snakes that the settlers – and their livestock – were likely to see were non-venomous and could be safely ignored. But not all of them. Some need to be treated with the utmost caution.

There were, for example, copperheads living on or near the trail. Although their bite is unpleasant, it’s rarely fatal. Then there were cottonmouths. They could be found sunning themselves on the ground or swimming in water and their bite can be deadly. Finally, there were various species of rattlesnake to contend with. Modern treatments mean rattlesnake bites are rarely fatal, but those remedies were not available in the mid-19th century.

Groups of families would come together to tackle the Oregon Trail. This made sense in terms of safety in numbers and the pooling of skills and resources. It’s said that the most successful wagon trains were those that had an agreed set of rules, akin to a constitution.

Well organized groups also tended to have an elected leader. The rules for a wagon train might include a ban on that dangerous duo, alcohol and gambling. But it wasn’t all just about law and order. Some wagon trains also made provision for those who fell ill and for families who had lost a member to illness or accident. 

It will come as no surprise to modern women that it was often their sex who bore the brunt of the hardships on the Oregon Trail. There wasn’t a maternity hospital to be seen when it came to childbirth, for example. Just the hard, flat bed of a covered wagon and no painkillers.

But men had to work extremely hard as well, although many wagon trains elected to take a day off on Sundays. This was a time for leisure, perhaps a religious service, and some free time for the children. Yet it seems there was little rest for the women. Sunday was laundry day.

If you’re particular about your food, you probably wouldn’t have enjoyed traveling the Oregon Trail. Since the pioneers had to carry most of their food with them, menu choices were severely limited. Hunks of salt pork accompanied by bread or biscuit were at the center of most meals. If you were lucky there might be a handful of dried fruit for dessert.

As far as luxuries went, many families took along a supply of coffee and sugar, so a morning cup of joe was a possibility... if there was enough water. Many families had a dairy cow in tow and so could drink fresh milk and even make butter. As for fresh meat, if you were the hunting type you could shoot a buffalo. 

It was the coming of the railway that marked the end of the Oregon Trail. After much toil the Union Pacific and Central Pacific companies completed the first transcontinental railroad. The last spike joining the tracks was hammered into place in May 1869 at Promontory Summit in Utah. The 2,000-mile line ran from Iowa to California.

So you could now make the journey from the Eastern Seaboard to the Pacific Coast in a matter of four days. During the most active period of the Oregon Trail, from the 1830s until the railroad opened, some 350,000 pioneers had made the perilous journey over mountains and across prairies. Now they could hop on a train.