Where Does the Oregon Trail Begin and End

Where Does the Oregon Trail Start & End? (Photo: )

Half a million settlers traveled from Missouri to Oregon in the 19th century along the site of the most famous migration in United States history: the Oregon Trail. Ten percent of those who traveled the trail from the 1840s to the 1860s died along the way, but the afflictions they faced – starvation and dysentery included – no longer pose the same dangers to modern travelers. And despite its bloody history, people today still opt to visit parts of the Oregon Trail in their travels.

Oregon Trail Location

This trail stretches for a whopping 2,170 miles across the United States, starting in Missouri and ending in Oregon. A few different towns in Missouri acted as starting points for settlers traveling along the trail, but the most common were the cities of Independence and Kansas City. The end goal was usually Oregon City, which at the time was the Oregon Territory's proposed capital, but many settlers opted to end their migration at other convenient points along the trail before Oregon City.

When settlers embarked on their migration in the 19th century, they had months of traveling ahead of them before reaching the West Coast. In the 1840s, it usually took about five and a half months to complete the Oregon Trail. By the 1850s, that time dropped to less than five months, but the trip was still a brutal one.

Visiting the Oregon Trail

The modern Oregon Trail offers several spots where tourists can stop and experience this piece of American history firsthand, one of the most interesting being the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon. There, visitors can try their hand at packing a trail wagon, hear stories from settlers who traveled the original trail and even spin a wheel of fate to determine whether they would have survived the migration. The center sits on 500 acres and hosts Oregon Trail-themed cooking competitions, weekend encampments, living history presentations and skill shows. You can even walk the 2.5-mile loop circling through the area to see the site of a former wagon encampment, plus preserved wagon trail ruts from the original Oregon Trail.

The National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center is open daily from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., except on Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year's Day and times of severe weather. Admission costs $5 for two days from November through March, and $8 from April through October.

Other points of interest include the End of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, which sits in Oregon City, the original trail's termination point. There, you can track your genealogy to see if you descend from pioneers and learn about traveler histories and the hardships of migrating along the Oregon Trail. Visitors can also head to the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute in Pendleton, Oregon, to learn about how the arrival of settlers who migrated along the Oregon Trail impacted the lives of Native Americans who already lived in those lands. This is the only institute dedicated to educating people on how Oregon Trail travelers affected tribal communities.

References

Writer Bio

Brenna Swanston is a freelance writer, editor and journalist. She covers topics including environment, education, agriculture and travel. She previously reported for the Sun newspaper in Santa Maria, Calif., and holds a bachelor's in journalism from California Polytechnic State University. Swanston is an avid traveler and loves jazz, yoga and craft beer.

Where Does the Oregon Trail Begin and End

Source: https://traveltips.usatoday.com/oregon-trail-start-end-63183.html

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