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Oregon Trail Nature Park |
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Oregon Trail Nature Park |
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The trail that passed on the southern edge of the Western Resources
Oregon Trail Nature Park was the original route of the trail to Oregon and California. In every year after 1830, caravans of fur traders, hunters and adventurers, missionary parties, and government surveyors and soldiers traveled west on this trail. In 1843, the first large emigration traveled west on the trail. This wagon train included approximately 1,000 people. In every year after that, wagon trains traveled this road on trips to the Rocky Mountains and the west coast. The emigrant trains usually passed the Western Resources Oregon Trail Nature Park during the last week in May and first week in June. The 2,000 mile journey to Oregon took an average of 5½ months during the 1840s. Travel time was cut to about 4 months in the 1850s due to trail improvements like bridges and/or ferry boat service over major rivers and other trail improvements. Virgel Pringle described this section of the trail in 1846. "May 17, 1846. Our course this day was on the hills running parallel with the Kansas River. This morning cool. Drove ahead till after two o'clock. It became very hot. Several oxen overcome with the heat. Stopped about three hours on a branch at the bottom of the Kansas bottom. Country still very fertile and handsome, timber scarce." (He camped on the bank of the Vermillion that night.) Goldrusher Kimball Webster also reported that his party camped near this location in 1849. He wrote, "June 6, 1849. We leave camp at 12 o'clock and travel 18 miles. We passed a Catholic mission erected for the purpose of Christianizing the Indian tribe and converting them to the Catholic religion. Indian settlements are quite numerous here. Rattlesnakes are seen in large numbers [sic] We camped in the evening, after which a very violent shower came up. The wind blew so violently that all of our tents were leveled to the earth over our heads, which was not very agreeable." The next day they traveled 4 miles to the Vermillion. Courtesy of Barbara Burgess |
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Oregon Trail Road, northeast of Belvue,
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