DREAMING OF OREGON & COLUMBIA RIVER

The tired pioneers bound on the Oregon Trail finally arrived in today's eastern Washington at the Columbia River.  It was not like coming from the Midwest to shirtsleeve weather, because, for many, it was winter. Snow then fell along the river frequently, until the westbound traveler was well beyond the Cascades Range that stands north/south between The Dalles and Portland, and from Canada almost to Mexico.

A diary of a pioneer woman told of how some of her family had ridden the rapid-strewn Columbia River. However, she was walking along the river with her infant son, shivering and her feet like lumps of ice. I am sure she was wondering why they had come all this way, only to suffer so bitterly. At the time  the migration wagons stopped at the river's edge or long before, and rafts on the river or one's own two feet were the transportation means.

Many of the pioneers put their wagons (minus their wheels) onto flimsy rafts that collapsed in the first of the river's many rapids and sank. A railroad group soon struggled to extend a crude train eastward from Portland or Vancouver, but it took time to manage an easy way for anyone traveling through the rugged Columbia Gorge. Those fortunate pioneers who made it in more favorable weather now were in temperate, green pastures south of the Columbia River in the Willamette country of Oregon, thanking the Lord they made it. Read about it in my late 2013 published book, Columbia River.

While I was passing along the North Platte, skirting such historic places as Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff**, the reality of the challenges of our forefathers moving west to seek farmland and homes for their young-uns was driven home in the contrast of my travel by comfortable van. And rightfully indignant native Americans already living along these trails were not there to threaten me, either.
**Scottsbluff, Scott's Bluff, Scotts Bluff all are spellings for this area.

YOUR CONESTOGA CAME THROUGH HERE

Passing through the Gap, as pioneers called it. It is Mitchell Pass in Nebraska, a break  in the 40 miles of buttes that line the northwest border of the state with Wyoming.  Imagine living in this wagon for months, your home with all your worldly possessions, a home oxen-powered, slower han walking. To the right is Scotts Bluff, to the left is Sentinel Rock. The route here is the Oregon Trail (and other named trails) paralleling the North Platte River, as the South Platte took off southwesterly for California miles behind you.

Initially, the earlier days pioneers tended to travel through the buttes a bit north at Robidoux Pass, because the approach pictured here had some difficult gullies and ravines east of the opening. They were filled in sometime in the 1840s or early 1850s, and thereafter travelers used the one shown. Robidoux was a trader in furs and some supplies to the east of the pass.

Thousands of pioneers came through this openin in the mid- 1800s , possibly some of your own relatives, bound for Oregon's fertile Willamette Valley or eastern Washington, or even Wyoming and Montana (lesser numbers).

Today you can drive in your heated or air-conditioned car along major highway #26 to imagine your ancestor's trip through today's Nebraska along the Platte River -- here at Scotts Bluff the North Platte. He/she probably prevented starvation some days by eating hardtack,  Believe me, it resembles a piece of bread that had been run over by the wheels of your Conestoga wagon a month ago!. I sampled one, hoping my teeth would not break off in the process. It was created by just flour and water, plus salt, perhaps.

PONY EXPRESS IN NEBRASKA

THE PONY EXPRESS IN NEBRASKA

When I was in Nebraska recently, I was taking photos of Scott's Bluff and admiring replicas of Conestoga wagons. Suddenly the sound of hoofbeats thundered toward the area. As a lifetime horse owner, it could only be one thing.  But why? Within minutes two western-clad men on  horses in full gallop came into the grassy place where I was standing, along with several other startled visitors. 

As they skidded to a stop nearby, I realized they were 2015 Pony Express riders re-enacting a segment of their 1860-61 rides. The two children pictured above were overwhelmed by the spectacle, restrained by their father and mother from dashing to the horses. The little boy was speechless, but the two children soon ventured close enough to the horse that its dismounted rider said, "It's okay, you can pet him right there." For fully 30 minutes the two riders explained  the history of the Pony Express period to an ever-larger impromptu audience.

In 1860 the continental telegraph lines had not yet been completed. Mail across this vast nation of ours was slow. A westerner often did not learn what was happening "back East" for weeks.  Gold had been  discovered in California and a strong movement existed toward the Western states, especially California and Oregon. In Oregon  settlers in wagons aimed for good land along the Columbia River north of today's Portland,

A private firm in 1860 established what became known as the Pony Express, where brave young riders, mostly of minimal weight and experienced with horses rode in relays to bring the mail from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California (and on to San Francisco by river steamer) in half the time it had taken by stagecoach -- 10 days instead of 20. It operated  only from April 3, 1860, until October 24, 1861, but it won the romantic hearts of all Americans. By 1861, the telegraph wires had reached the far west.

The 2,000-mile Pony Express route ran through most of the state of Nebraska. No wonder the children pictured here would view the riders as their heroes of their home state.