Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail

Map of the Oregon Trail
Operation
Created by	Fur traders in the 1830s
Years used	1841-1880s[1]
Location	Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon
Length	2,170 miles (3,500 kilometres)[1]
Travelers
Total number	400,000 (estimated)[1]
Deaths	16,000[2] – 40,000[3]
Now a National Historic Trail of the National Park Service
v t e

People traveled on the Oregon Trail in wagons in order to settle new parts of the United States of America during the 19th century. The Oregon Trail started in Missouri near the area where Kansas City, Missouri is today and ended in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The Trail was about 2,170 miles (3,500 km) long, and could take up to six months to travel.^[1]

People went to Oregon for many reasons. Some people wanted land. Some thought Oregon would be a better place to live. Most of them went because they wanted a new life.^[1]

The Oregon Trail was first traveled around 1841. Once a railroad was built across the United States in 1869, people could take trains to the western United States, so fewer people began to travel west in wagons. By that time, about 400,000 people had crossed the Oregon Trail in wagons. However, some people kept traveling the Trail until the 1880s.^[1]

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5} "Basic Facts about the Oregon Trail". National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. United States Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management. Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved February 11, 2016.
2. ↑ Cite error: The named reference unruh was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).
3. ↑ Cite error: The named reference park was used but no text was provided for refs named (see the help page).