![]() ![]() 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. ![]() These shortcuts were especially popular in Wyoming, where the network of alternative pathways meandered more than a hundred miles north and south. As the years passed, enterprising settlers also blazed dozens of new trails, or cutoffs, that allowed travelers to bypass stopping points and reach their destination quicker. Pioneers often spread out for several miles across the plains to hunt, find grazing patches for their animals and avoid the choking dust clouds kicked up by other wagon trains. While most Oregon-bound emigrants traveled a route that passed by landmarks in Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon, there was never just one set of wagon ruts leading west. A map showing the westward trail from Missouri to Oregon. ![]()
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