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OCTA > 2020 Emigrant Trails Hall of Fame Selectees

Emigrant Trails Category: 2020 Emigrant Trails Hall of Fame Selectees

Francis Parkman

Photo of Francis Parkman

Brigham Young

Photo of Brigham Young

John C. Fremont

portrait of John C. Fremont

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Oregon-California Trails Association

1 day ago

On this day in history, March 7, 1862, the Union (commanded by Brig. Gen. Samuel Curtis) battled the Confederates (who were who were under the command of Brig. Gen. Earl Van Dorn) at the Battle of Pea Ridge (or Elkhorn Tavern) in NW Arkansas. The tavern (the 1865 version is pictured here after the original 1833 structure burned down) served as a trading post, an unofficial Butterfield Overland Mail stop, post office, voting place, eating establishment, church of the Benton County Baptist Society, and inn. The battle ended a day later as a Union victory and helped lock down control of Missouri. The battle was fought along the Wire Road, remnants of which can still be seen inside this National Military Park. Until the outbreak of the Civil War a year earlier, this was the road used by the Butterfield Overland Stage. A generation earlier, it was a route of the Trail of Tears. The Battle of Wilson's Creek, fought six months earlier outside of Springfield, Missouri, was similarly fought along and for control of the Wire Road, also part of the Trail of Tears and Butterfield Overland Stage route. Remnants of the trail can also be viewed in that National Military Park. ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

2 days ago

Today in history, March 6, 1849, Hiram Pierce took a train to New York City and then sailed to Chagres, Panama. At the end of the month, Pierce marched across the steamy Isthmus of Panama, decades before a canal or alternate form of transport would be built. The journey took only a few days, but the trail was muddy and the thick jungle trapped the steaming heat. Pierce counted 40 dead mules on the way. One night, a man shot a tiger near their camp. The Panamanians who had been hired to transport the gear could be coaxed to finish the job only with a pistol.On the Pacific coast of Panama, thousands of Americans sought passage to San Francisco. Pierce waited six weeks before a filthy ship took him aboard. Conditions were rough and Pierce was often seasick and homesick. One member of his party died after suffering a burn and was buried at sea. After two months, San Francisco was a welcome sight, but the city was a shocking place. "Went ashore and found such a wild state of things as almost to intoxicate a person without giving 50 cents a glass....San Francisco is a miserable dusty dirty town of some 5,000, out of every kindred tongue and people under Heaven," Pierce wrote in his journal. Read more at the link here. ... See MoreSee Less

Hiram and Sara Pierce | American Experience | PBS

www.pbs.org

The Pierces faced new challenges when Hiram journied to California to seek fortune, leaving Sara and the family back east.

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Oregon-California Trails Association

3 days ago

E-News for Friday, March 5, 2021 - https://mailchi.mp/indepmo/e-news-board-meeting-and-other-important-updates-3088766 ... See MoreSee Less

E-News for Friday, March 5, 2021

mailchi.mp

Criss-crossing what would become the U.S.-Mexico border, travelers meandered their way on the Southern Trail. Come hear Harry Hewitt talk about the joint U.S./Mexico effort to survey the border in the...

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Oregon-California Trails Association

3 days ago

Announcing! From Westport, Missouri to “Oregon Blue” join emigrants as they traverse the Oregon Trail - enjoy a virtual musical trip along the trail to be held on Saturday March 20, 2021 at 1:00 pm MDT. Remember to register for the program!Exciting news! Donna Gunn will present her program “Music on the Trail: Where American Folk Songs Meet Classical Art Music” in a virtual, online format on Saturday, March 20, 2021 at 1 pm Mountain Daylight Time. This presentation is made possible by Humanities Nebraska, the Nebraska Cultural Endowment, the Black Hills Parks and Forests Association and Scotts Bluff National Monument as part of the HN Speakers Bureau. Pre-registration is required. To register, please email Black Hills Parks and Forests Association at bhpf@blackhillsparks.org by 3 pm MDT on Friday, March 19, 2021.From Westport, Missouri to “Oregon Blue” join emigrants as they traverse the Oregon Trail. Experience the vastness of the open prairie, feel the energy from atop Scotts Bluff National Monument, and triumph in the accomplishment of fording the mountains to the Promised Land. Sing the American folk songs of the mid-1800’s and experience life on the Trail. Classical piano music inspired by the folk songs is interwoven into the canvas of the covered wagon way of life. Image- A woman leans against a piano with a trunk at her feet. Donna Gunn/used with permission. ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

3 days ago

"We no sooner reached that point than a beautiful, smooth road invited us to proceed." How wonderful that Harriet Sherill Ward thought a road was inviting her and her family to keep going! Here is an excerpt from her diary in 1853, courtesy of our friends at the California Trail Interpretive Center.March is Women's History Month!Frontier Fridays this month will include diary accounts from women pioneers as they traveled through Elko Valley and Carlin Canyon.Harriet Sherrill Ward, her husband William, 17-year old daughter Frances, and 11-year old Willie left Wisconsin in April 1853 with two horse-drawn wagons to join their second-oldest son (a 49er) in the gold fields of California. They camped in the vicinity of the present location of Elko on the night of August 29. On August 30, Harriet wrote, "We were all on our winding way at an early hour. Our road led us through a pass in the Humboldt Mountains, the scenery strangely varied and beautiful beyond my descriptive powers to portray, but they are indelibly engraven on my memory, in which they have formed beautiful pictures on which my mind will delight in after years to dwell. We have crossed the Humboldt River four times. Not bad except one sidling bank, where they were obliged to hold the wagons to prevent them turning over. We all came through without accident except Will, who thought he would be very smart and jump onto the bank just before we reached it. His foot caught and down he went into the water. He received a good ducking. The last crossing today brought us into a lovely little valley of not more than twenty acres of perfectly level land, covered with the softest green carpet imaginable and entirely surrounded by high Rocky Mountains; and here we were to all appearance shut out from the world entirely, unless the presiding Giant of these wild mountains should, with his magic wand, unbar the rocky gates and give us permission to mingle with the world again. But a short drive convinced us that we needed no such imaginary aid, for a kind Providence, in the formation of the mountains, had opened a natural gate for us which was hidden from our view by a sharp angle. We no sooner reached that point than a beautiful, smooth road invited us to proceed. We accordingly did and soon found ourselves at our beautiful camping ground on the river's brink with the wind blowing a perfect gale. Father's watch, Frankie quite sick. We travelled twenty miles."Harriet's diary was published in 1959 as "Prairie Schooner Lady". ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

3 days ago

Today in history, March 5, 1849, President James K. Polk writes in his diary about events on his last day in office and the inaugural ceremonies of his successor, General Zachary Taylor. President-elect Taylor, with a military escort, collected President Polk in his carriage at the Irving Hotel and they proceeded first to the Senate Chamber, then to the east portico of the Capitol, where General Taylor read his inaugural address "in a very low voice, and very badly as to his pronunciation and manner," and then was sworn into office by the chief justice. Afterward, in his hotel, Polk records his alarm at Taylor's conversation about California and Arizona on the way to the Capitol, as it was President-elect Taylor's opinion that they should have an "Independent Government" and not be part of the Union. Mr. Polk later describes receiving well-wishers at his hotel until eleven o'clock at night when, accompanied by a few friends, he and Mrs. Polk boarded a steamboat that would take them to their home in Tennessee.Polk would contract cholera during this farewell tour of the South and die in June at his home. Taylor would himself contract cholera and die a little more than a year later, leaving Millard Fillmore to sign the Compromise of 1850, which admitted California as a free state and created the New Mexico and Utah Territories. To access all of the Polk papers, visit the Library of Congress website at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms009178 ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

4 days ago

We remember David Jamiel, who served in the Elko Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management, and his work towards the California Trail Interpretive Center. Our sympathies to his family, friends, and colleagues along the trails. ... See MoreSee Less

Obituary for David Allen Jamiel | Tabor Funeral Home, Inc.

www.taborfuneralhome.com

Share memories & support the family

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Oregon-California Trails Association

4 days ago

Happy Birthday today to the State of Idaho!Happy Idaho Day! On March 4, 1863, Abraham Lincoln signed the act creating Idaho Territory. One week later, the birth of Idaho Territory made front page news on the New York Herald. It reads: “Idaho: The New Rocky Mountain Territory. Another Gold State in Embryo. Away up in the Rocky Mountain region, north of Utah and Colorado, and West of Nebraska, lies the country named Shoshone on some of our maps, to be hereafter known as Idaho, pronounced with the accent on the first and last syllables. It embraces four degrees of latitude—from forty-one to forty-five in the eastern half and from forty-two to forty-six in the western half—and thirteen degrees of longitude—from one hundred and four to one hundred and seventeen. The pony express route from Missouri to California traverses the eastern half of it. The Rocky Mountains form a gigantic back bone, stretching up northwesterly from the South Pass, and innumerable rivers act as the veins and arteries, carrying off the melted snow from those high latitudes and sending their tribute to the Father of Waters...” You can read the article in its entirety in the A. Lincoln: His Legacy in Idaho Exhibit at the Idaho State Archives, free and open to the public Tuesday-Saturday, 11 am-4 pm. You can also celebrate Idaho Day by joining History Happy Hour with the Idaho State Museum this evening for a panel discussion commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Idaho State Capitol. Register at History.Idaho.Gov. ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

4 days ago

The Santa Fe Trail is 200 years old this year - 1821-2021!Two wars dramatically impacted the Santa Fe Trail. The Mexican-American War brought heavy military traffic up and down the trail. Twenty years later, the Civil War caused the relocation of the eastern part of the trail northward to Fort Leavenworth to avoid danger. #KansasHistory ... See MoreSee Less

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Oregon-California Trails Association

4 days ago

If you go to Plattsburg, Missouri, there's a plaque that discusses the day that David Rice Atchison became president for a day on this day in history, March 4, 1849. The problem is: it's not true. As tens thousands of Americans were making plans to strike out to California for the gold rush, a wrinkle in the calendar led to the office of the presidency being vacant for a day. Read the rest of the story at the link here:https://senate.gov/artandhistory/senate-stories/… ... See MoreSee Less

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Featured Products

Bruff's Wake: J. Goldsborough Bruff & the California Gold Rush, by H. L James $24.95
The Oregon Trail Revisited, by Gregory M. Franzwa $24.95
In Pursuit of a Dream (DVD) $20.00
Reading, Writing and Riding Along the Oregon-California Trails (An Educational Activity Book), by William E. Hill $8.95

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