The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the current states of Idaho and Oregon.
Meriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, politician, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark. Their mission was to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase, establish trade with, and sovereignty over the natives near the Missouri River, and claim the Pacific Northwest and Oregon Country for the United States before European nations. They also collected scientific data, and information on indigenous nations. President Thomas Jefferson appointed him Governor of Upper Louisiana in 1806. He died of gunshot wounds in what was either a murder or suicide, in 1809.
The Mormon Battalion was the only religious unit in United States military history in federal service, recruited solely from one religious body and having a religious title as the unit designation. The volunteers served from July 1846 to July 1847 during the Mexican–American War of 1846–1848. The battalion was a volunteer unit of between 534 and 559 Latter-day Saint men, led by Mormon company officers commanded by regular U.S. Army officers. During its service, the battalion made a grueling march of nearly 2,100 miles from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego, California.
The Mormon Trail is the 1,300-mile (2,100 km) long route from Illinois to Utah on which Mormon pioneers traveled from 1846–47. Today, the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
Fort Hall was a fort in the Western United States that was built in 1834 as a fur trading post by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth. It was located on the Snake River in the eastern Oregon Country, now part of present-day Bannock County in southeastern Idaho. Wyeth was an inventor and businessman from Boston, Massachusetts, who also founded a post at Fort William, in present-day Portland, Oregon, as part of a plan for a new trading and fisheries company. In 1837, unable to compete with the powerful British Hudson's Bay Company, based at Fort Vancouver, Wyeth sold both posts to it. Great Britain and the United States both operated in the Oregon Country in these years.
Lake View Cemetery is a private cemetery located in Seattle, Washington, in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, just north of Volunteer Park. Known as "Seattle's Pioneer Cemetery," it is run by an independent, non-profit association. It was founded in 1872 as the Seattle Masonic Cemetery and later renamed for its view of Lake Washington to the east.
Fort Kearny was a historic outpost of the United States Army founded in 1848 in the western U.S. during the middle and late 19th century. The fort was named after Col. and later General Stephen Watts Kearny. The outpost was located along the Oregon Trail near Kearney, Nebraska. The town of Kearney took its name from the fort. The "e" was added to Kearny by postmen who consistently misspelled the town name. A portion of the original site is preserved as Fort Kearny State Historical Park by the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission.
The United States Camel Corps was a mid-19th-century experiment by the United States Army in using camels as pack animals in the Southwestern United States. Although the camels proved to be hardy and well suited to travel through the region, the Army declined to adopt them for military use. The Civil War interfered with the experiment, which was eventually abandoned; the animals were sold at auction.
The Battle of Marmiton River, also known as Shiloh Creek or Charlot's Farm, occurred on October 25, 1864, in Vernon County, Missouri during the American Civil War. Major General Sterling Price of the Confederate States Army commenced an expedition into Missouri in September 1864, with hopes of challenging Union control of the state. After a defeat at the Battle of Westport on October 23, Price began to retreat south, and suffered a serious defeat at the Battle of Mine Creek early on October 25. The afternoon of the 25th, Price's wagon train became stalled at the crossing of the Marmaton River in western Missouri. A delaying force led by Brigadier General Joseph O. Shelby attempted to hold off Union cavalry commanded by Brigadier General John McNeil and Lieutenant Colonel Frederick W. Benteen. Shelby was unable to drive off the Union force, although fatigue of the Union cavalry's horses prevented close-quarters action. At nightfall, the Confederates disengaged and destroyed much of their wagon train. Price was again defeated on October 28 at the Second Battle of Newtonia, and the Confederate retreat continued until the survivors reached Texas in early December.
Ezra Morgan Meeker was an American pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon as a young man, migrating from Iowa to the Pacific Coast. Later in life he worked to memorialize the Trail, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth. Once known as the "Hop King of the World", he was the first mayor of Puyallup, Washington.
George Washington Bush was an American pioneer and one of the first African-American non-Amerindian settlers of the Pacific Northwest.
The Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail is a route across the United States commemorating the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804 to 1806. It is part of the National Trails System of the United States. It extends for some 4,900 miles (7,900 km) from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the mouth of the Columbia River in Oregon.
William Keil was the founder of 19th-century communal religious societies in Bethel, Missouri, and Aurora Colony in Oregon.
The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in the migration of members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah, who used handcarts to transport their belongings. The Mormon handcart movement began in 1856 and continued until 1860.
Naches Pass is a mountain pass in the Cascade Range in the state of Washington. It is located about 50 miles (80 km) east of Tacoma and about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Yakima, near the headwaters of tributary streams of the Naches River on the east and the Greenwater River on the west. The boundaries of Pierce, King, Kittitas, and Yakima counties come together at the pass. The pass lies on the boundary between the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie and Wenatchee National Forests, about 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Mount Rainier National Park. There are no roadways or railways crossing the pass.
Menlo is a small unincorporated community in the Willapa Valley of Pacific County, Washington, United States. The community is home to a general store and post office, the Pacific County Fairgrounds and a secondary/high school — Willapa Valley High School.
Sacajawea State Park is a public recreation area and historical preserve in the city of Pasco, Washington, covering 267 acres (108 ha) at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers where the Lewis and Clark Expedition camped on October 16, 1805. The state park bears the name of the Shoshone woman Sacagawea, who was an active member of the expedition married to expedition member Toussaint Charbonneau, a French-Canadian interpreter and explorer. The park's Sacajawea Interpretive Center features exhibits about her and about the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
William Taylor Barnes Sanford (1814–1863) was an American road builder, a landowner and the second postmaster of Los Angeles, California, after it became a part of the United States. He was a member of the Los Angeles Common Council in 1853–54.
Aurora Colony, also called Aurora Mills, was a Christian utopian communal society founded in 1856 by William Keil in modern-day Aurora, Oregon, US. At its peak in 1868, the Aurora Colony had about 600 people and 15,000 acres (6,100 ha) of land. The colony, along with Keil's previously established Bethel colony, was formally dissolved in 1883. In 1974, about 150 acres (61 ha) and 12 buildings of the former colony were inscribed on the National Register of Historic Places as parts of the Aurora Colony Historic District.
The Willapa Hills Trail is a 56.0-mile (90.1 km) intercounty rail trail in the U.S. state of Washington that is part of the Willapa Hills State Park. Following an east–west route alongside State Route 6, the tract links Chehalis and South Bend, traveling through or near several small towns and parks along the way. Overseen by the Washington State Park System, local cities and towns often maintain areas of the trail within their jurisdictions. The trail is built upon a decommissioned railroad track.
