OREGON TRAIL FACTS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, 100% ACCURATE, GRADED A+/| latest update 2024/25|

OREGON TRAIL FACTS QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS, 100% ACCURATE, GRADED A+/ The Oregon Trail was a wagon road stretching 2170 miles from Missouri to Oregon's Willamette Valley. - -From the 1840s through the 1880s, thousands trekked westward, carrying only a few belonging and supplies for the journey, and settling on the western frontier, forever changing the American West. The first Europeans and Euro-Americans to see the far west were mountain men, trappers, overland explorers, and maritime explorers of the fur trade era. - -The Oregon trail was one of several routes traveled in the mid-nineteenth century by pioneers seeking to settle in the western territories. The Oregon Trail was first traveled in the early 1840s. - -In 1840, Joel Walker successfully brought his wife and five children westward over the route to Oregon. In 1841, the Bidwell-Bartleson party of over 60 people gathered at Independence, Missouri, the last settlement on the western frontier, to make the trek west to California. - -Only some 5,000 or so had made it to Oregon Territory by 1845, with another 3,000 making their way to California three years later. The Oregon and California Trails followed the same path for almost half of this journey, so over landers headed to either destination faced many of the same natural obstacles. - -Departing from the small towns of Independence or St. Joseph, Missouri, or Council Bluffs, Iowa, miles of open plains initially greeted the travelers. The trail followed first the Missouri and then the Platte River. - -The water of the Platte was too dirty to drink, not deep enough to float a barge, and so broad that it left great mud flats and quicksand in the way of the unsuspecting settler. As the Rocky Mountains neared, the over landers shifted to the north side of the Platte, and then maneuvered to cross the Continental Divide at the South Pass, low enough, broad enough, and safe enough for wagon transit. - -At this halfway point, the Orego