Del Norte Public Library

"The story of the frontier express lines that linked the nation together"--Jacket subtitle.

An account of the westward movement of the pioneers which began in 1841, lavishly illustrated with contemporary paintings and photographs.

Explores the history, routes, landmarks, and legacy of the famous Oregon, California, Mormon, and Santa Fe Trails as well as the people who risked all in order to expand the American frontier.

Drawing on fresh archeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner party--ninety pioneers who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47-- and their unimaginable ordeal

Describes how pioneers set out across the United States and Canada in the nineteenth century looking for a better life in the West--the routes they took, the covered wagons they used, what they ate, the dangers they faced, and more.

Follows a wagon trail to California in 1848 as hundreds of pioneers endure great hardships while traveling 2,000 miles of wilderness.

In all the sagas of human migration, few can top the drama of the journey by midwestern farmers to Oregon and California in the years 1840-49. Seeking the promised land, these travelers trekked two thousand miles by covered wagon from Missouri to their destinations on the Pacific coast. Although they used mountain men as guides, they went almost literally into the unknown, braving dangers from hunger, thirst, disease, drowning, and Native Americans....

Describes what it was like traveling on the Oregon Trail, including what travelers ate, wore, and saw along the route.

Thousands of American families, along with immigrants from Europe and elsewhere, headed west on the Overland Trail in the mid-nineteenth century toward California, Oregon and Washington. Among these pioneers, about half were young people eighteen and under whose stories appear here.