Dangers on the Oregon Trail

Ira Wesley Kitmacher

In leading my weekly walking tours of Olympia, I ask, “Where does the Oregon Trail end?” Most people answer California or Oregon.

In fact, the trail's northernmost spur ends in Sylvester Park in Olympia. Some dispute that, but a plaque attached to a boulder in the park, placed there in 1913 by the Daughters of the American Revolution, Sacagawea Chapter, reads: “Here ends the Oregon Trail.”

I’ve had tourgoers identify themselves as lifelong Olympia residents and say they’ve passed the boulder numerous times without noticing it. Sometimes the most important history is the kind we forget or don’t notice. 

Some may say, “But isn’t it the Cowlitz Trail that came north from the Columbia River to Olympia?” Both answers are right, as the Cowlitz Trail was the northern extension of the Oregon Trail. The overland route from Cowlitz Landing (modern-day Toledo, Washington, 47 miles south of Olympia) was notoriously brutal, forcing wagons through deep mud that could swallow oxen.

In 1845, Michael T. Simmons and George Bush (who I mentioned in my last column) — a wealthy Black pioneer fleeing discriminatory laws in Oregon — led the first Americans up this spur to establish Puget Sound’s first permanent settlement of New Market, which by 1863 was renamed Tumwater. 

An Oregon Trail wagon train.

Courtesy of Library of Congress

The 19th century Oregon Trail stretched approximately 2,000 miles westward from Missouri. It was a major land route, with 300,000 to 400,000 emigrants using it between 1840 and 1860.

The Trail reflected the 19th-century belief in “Manifest Destiny,” which many believed meant Americans had the right to own land from “sea to shining sea” (as the words say in “America the Beautiful,” completed in its final song form in 1910, though the poem was originally drafted in 1893).

Even if one didn’t believe in Manifest Destiny, the trail reflected the westward expansion of the country.  As I’ve said before, this had a horrific impact on Natives, who had lived here for 10,000 years or more; up to 95 percent of Native populations alive in 1804-06 when Lewis and Clark explored the region were dead by late in the century, driven by disease, displacement, and war. 

Awaiting these travelers was inexpensive, fertile land, as promised by the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850 and the Homestead Act of 1862. Pioneers had to use their ingenuity, like building fires with wild animal feces instead of wood. Because wagons were packed with up to 2,500 pounds of provisions, almost everyone walked over 2,000 miles on foot at a slow 15 miles a day. They even hung milk buckets from the moving wagons so the constant jolting would churn it into butter by nightfall. Emigrants often had to pay exorbitant prices to less-than-honest sellers for supplies. 

The trail was dangerous; over 30,000 lives were lost, at least 1 in 10, or 10 percent, of emigrants. Tremendous hardship and death were too frequent occurrences for travelers along the trail. It is estimated that 10 graves were dug every mile to bury the dead. Most deaths occurred due to diseases caused by poor sanitation, contaminated water and crowded conditions, such as cholera, dysentery, scurvy and typhoid fever, as well as measles, smallpox, and others.  

The most frequent accidents came from falls and being run over by wagons. Many pioneers purchased firearms for protection (there was little or no law enforcement), and as these were the first weapons many had owned, mishaps occurred, causing injury and death.

Other deaths on the trail were due to drowning in rivers, snake bites, food poisoning, suicide, weather, stampeding livestock, wild animals, fellow migrant attacks, and gunpowder explosions. There were few doctors, and with medical science in its infancy, these practitioners often made things worse, such as bleeding for fever and using mercury or opium in medicines. Migrants became accustomed to death, suffering each loss together, quickly burying their dead, and pressing on in hopes of a better life.  

One of the most dangerous stretches of the Trail was Laurel Hill on the Barlow Road, which featured a terrifyingly steep descent for migrants. It is located on U.S. Highway 26 near Government Camp, Oregon, just east of Portland and 162 miles south of Olympia. Wagons had to be lowered with block and tackle, and some ropes tore, sending the wagons they were securing hurtling down the hill to a deadly outcome. The alternative to the Barlow Road was traveling down the rapids of the wild Columbia River, which was little better.  

Barlow Road

Courtesy of The Oregon Encyclopedia

Conflicts between Natives and migrants along the trail were relatively rare. It is estimated that between 1840 and 1860, Natives killed 362 migrants, and migrants killed 426 Natives. Making things worse were bad advice and directions, such as the Hastings Cutoff (an 1846 migrant trail that passed through Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada), which put pioneers in harm’s way with boulders, deep water, dead-end canyons, snow, and worse, like the horrible stories of death and cannibalism. 

The worst may have been the 1846–47 Donner Party, in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, in which 42 of 87 pioneers died.  Also horrible was the 1860 Utter-Van Ornum Party, in southwestern Idaho and eastern Oregon, in which 29 out of 44 emigrants died after Native attacks.  

Due to the suffering and deaths along the trail, ghost stories and other folkloric tales are plentiful.  

Ira Wesley Kitmacher is an Olympia-based historian and author, writing twelve published and upcoming history and folklore books, many on the Pacific Northwest (including Haunted Puget Sound and Pacific Northwest Legends and Lore), one on World War 2, and two on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. His books are available through many booksellers. Ira speaks at many public venues.  He leads Olympia tours based on his books. Ira is featured on television, radio, and other media. He is a Commissioner on the Thurston County Historic Commission. Ira is a professor who has taught graduate courses at Georgetown University and other colleges. He is a retired senior federal executive and an attorney (California, Inactive).