They could even be caulked with tar and floated across un-fordable rivers and streams.

When pulled by teams of oxen or mules, they could creak their way toward Oregon Country at a pace of around 15 to 20 miles a day. These vehicles typically included a wooden bed about four feet wide and ten feet long. Most pioneers instead tackled the trail in more diminutive wagons that become known as “prairie schooners” for the way their canvas covers resembled a ship’s sail.

But while the Conestoga was an indispensable part of trade and travel in the East, it was far too large and unwieldy to survive the rugged terrain of the frontier. Popular depictions of the Oregon Trail often include trains of boat-shaped Conestoga wagons bouncing along the prairie. The iconic Conestoga wagon was rarely used on the Oregon Trail. That year, Marcus helped lead the first major wagon train of around 1,000 settlers along the Oregon Trail, an exodus now known as the “Great Migration.” Traffic soon skyrocketed, and by the late-1840s and early 1850s, upwards of 50,000 people were using the trail each year.ģ. Still, it wasn’t until 1843 that the pioneer dam finally burst.

28-year-old Narcissa became the first white woman to traverse the Rocky Mountains, and her colorful letters home were later published in Eastern newspapers, convincing many would-be pioneers that it was possible for their families to survive the journey west. Louis to the Walla Walla Valley to minister to Cayuse Indians. That changed in 1836, when newlywed missionaries Marcus and Narcissa Whitman took a small party of wagons from St. A pair of Protestant missionaries made one of the trail’s first wagon crossings.įrontier explorers and fur trappers blazed the rough outlines of the Oregon Trail in the early 19th century, but the route was initially considered too demanding for women, children or covered wagons to navigate.

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