Oregon Trail Last week & the Mid 1800s

 January 17, 2022

Wyoming Fact & Fiction

We are back from a quick trip to visit family in southeast Nebraska. My two hometowns, where I grew up in Fairbury, Nebraska, and now in Guernsey, Wyoming, are Oregon Trail towns.

Traveling the Oregon Trail - Every time we go back to visit, I think about those Prairie Schooners rumbling along at 10 to 15 miles per day. My, growing up, home town, sits near one of the first difficult river crossings – the Little Blue. The crossing was treacherous if the wagons got there early in the year.

Little Blue looked peaceful when I snapped this last July.

By the time they reached Guernsey, most wagons were following the south side of the North Platte River. The Mormon Trail runs along the north side of the river, only a few miles from the Oregon Trail on the south by the time it gets here.

North Platte in mid-June in Guernsey, Wy. 

The driving distance from here in Wyoming to where I grew up in Fairbury is 485 miles, about eight to nine hours for us oldsters who stop several times along the way. The wagons would have taken more than a month, likely closer to six weeks. But hundreds of thousands made the trip, with about 20,000 who died along the way. Cholera and other sickness and disease killed most of the thousands who died along the way. Indians, who have killed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions on TV, old-time radio, and movies, actually killed about 400. 

Most who traveled walked instead of overtaxing their animals, primarily Oxen, with extra weight.

Not an Oxen but good looking Longhorn

The wagon itself was only about 4X10. Even in our tiny house world, forty square feet is not much.

A landmark of the trail - Chimney Rock in western Nebraska

One Book You Might Need in Your Library – Patrick T. Holscher’s – On This Day In Wyoming History.

So what happened in Wyoming History today from the book? Kendall Wyoming had a low temperature of -52. Now that is cold! Thanks for the info, Patrick.

Shout Out for this Blog - It is always nice to be noticed, and this week I received word that this blog is now listed in FeedSpot as one of the Top 15 Wyoming Blogs & Websites. Click the link to see the list. I read several of these sites – good stuff, no cost! 

Wyoming Trivia – two questions today

Q1 - What are Oxen?

Q2 - Where did emigrants on the Oregon Trail hope to be by the 4^th of July

Trail Ruts near Guernsey - about a 1/2 mile south of our house.

Answers

Q1 - Oxen are no different in origin than other cattle. They are simply neutered bulls trained to pull.

Q2 - Independence Rock

 

See you next week!

 

Markers Along the Oregon Trail

Traveling the Oregon Trail must have been quite an ordeal. Along with the lack of food, lack of good water, lack of fuel and the constant fear of attack from Indians, travelers had to put up with walking most of the way. They experienced freezing cold mornings and often scorching afternoons. But finding the way west was, after the first few years, not as difficult as many novels and stories seem to make it. Many good scouts, or pilots as they were sometimes called, worked the trail, many had earlier trapped and traded in the west and knew much of life on the trail.

Wagons followed the Platte River across present-day Nebraska and looked forward to their first view of the west, Chimney Rock and soon after if the days were clear Laramie Peak.

Chimney Rock – Near Bridgeport Nebraska and along Highway - 26, was a towering marker letting travelers know they were leaving the flat and easy part of the journey west. Chimney Rock stood more than 400 feet above the North Platte River and could be seen for days from the wagon trains. Today Chimney Rock is still striking but stands about 100 feet less than it once did.

Chimney Rock

Laramie Peak – Often Laramie Peak could be seen before the wagons reached Chimney Rock. The highest point of the Laramie Range, the peak stands 10,276 feet high. By most standards a mountain a bit over 10,000 feet high is not much, but when viewed from the prairie, after weeks of traveling the flat land, it was most impressive. The peak, as it is referred to by locals now, also meant the wagons would soon be turning north with the river toward present-day Casper, Wyoming. As a side note, famed mountain man Jim Bridger* often claimed he’d been in the mountains so long that when he came west, Laramie Peak was, “nothin’ but a hole in the ground.”

 *Bridger came into this country on his first trip west 195 years ago.

Laramie Peak as it looked from the wagon trains