Why Did So Many People Travel On The Oregon Trail

It is the year 1832 and you’re on a riding along in a caravan with Nathaniel Wyeth, who leads the new group of settlers along a foreign trail. There have been many hardships; lack of food, deaths during the journey. It is no doubt that there were many obstacles travelers faced while traveling on the Oregon Trail, but this matter does not take away from the good that this trail did for the country of America. Some people have said that the ending results and settlements were not worth the loss of the journey to get there. The Oregon Trail was one of the single trails that helped lead to the west coast from the east. This particular trail led from Missouri to Oregon or more specifically, the Missouri River to the Columbia River. It helped settlers

John Bidwell had lead an emigrant group (“with 69 people, including 15 women and children. There were 14 wagons pulled by horses or oxen, and four carts.” [The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, 2003]) to the West in 1841 along the Oregon Trail. Finding their way off the trail, evidently creating what came to be known as the California Trail, they had found themselves in the state of present-day California. In the late 1850s, gold had been found in many different territories such as present day Colorado, Montana, Idaho and eastern Oregon. This caused settlers to use the Oregon Trail as the “main trail” as they wandered off into other lands. At some point, the Congress had decided to pass the Preemption Bill. This bill gave permission to occupy and settle (or to “squat”) on a piece of land after it being surveyed by the government. Law encouraged the movement towards the west along with reports made by Lieutenant John C. Fremont. This way, more people were exposed to the West and what more land it had to offer other than

Some of these including farming, gold mining, and trade. Many industries thrived after finding the West/Midwest of the United States and whatever resources it had to offer. Some in which reached their heights during the Gold Rush. One of the most known leaps in growth in American history is that of gold mining. The Gold Rush is a widely acknowledged historic event in U.S history. It had been a height in the gold mining industry. Many would travel the Oregon Trail, aiming for California on the West Coast where large amounts of gold were found in mines and rivers. This sudden rush of news in the area of the West Coast had reached the other end of the continent in no time. This news excited many, therefore “one of the migrations stimulated by the discovery of gold was the internal westward movement of Americans from the eastern states who hoped to make fortunes in California” (California Gold Rush [1848-1858], 2014). Not only did the mine industry reach a high point during the Gold Rush, but so did the printing/publishing industry as well. Since the news of the Gold Rush seemed to be such a big and popular thing that spread to the East Coast so easily in a matter of time, California guidebooks (“publishers were trying to quickly make California guidebooks to make profit off of the swarm of people wishing to go to California to find a fortune”. [Dary, 2004, pgs 200 - ]) were