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.
A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness and makes his living from hunting and trapping. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s. They were instrumental in opening up the various emigrant trails allowing Americans in the east to settle the new territories of the far west by organized wagon trains traveling over roads explored and in many cases,physically improved by the mountain men and the big fur companies originally to serve the mule train-based inland fur trade.
South Pass is a route across the Continental Divide,in the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Wyoming. It lies in a broad high region,35 miles (56 km) wide,between the nearly 14,000 ft (4,300 m) Wind River Range to the north and the over 8,500 ft (2,600 m) Oregon Buttes and arid,saline near-impassable Great Divide Basin to the south. The Pass lies in southwestern Fremont County,approximately 35 miles (56 km) SSW of Lander.
Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville was an American officer in the United States Army,fur trapper,and explorer in the American West. He is noted for his expeditions to the Oregon Country and the Great Basin,and in particular for blazing portions of the Oregon Trail.
Hall Jackson Kelley was an American settler and writer from New England known for his strong advocacy for settlement by the United States of the Oregon Country in the 1820s and 1830s. A native of New Hampshire,he was a school teacher in Maine and Massachusetts,and a longtime resident of the latter state after graduating from Harvard College.
The Fort Hall Reservation is a Native American reservation of the federally recognized Shoshone-Bannock Tribes in the U.S. state of Idaho. This is one of five federally recognized tribes in the state. The reservation is located in southeastern Idaho on the Snake River Plain about 20 miles (32 km) north and west of Pocatello. It comprises 814.874 sq mi (2,110.51 km2) of land area in four counties:Bingham,Power,Bannock,and Caribou. To the east is the 60-mile-long (97 km) Portneuf Range;both Mount Putnam and South Putnam Mountain are located on the Fort Hall Reservation.
Peter Skene Ogden was a British-Canadian fur trader and an early explorer of what is now British Columbia and the Western United States. During his many expeditions,he explored parts of Oregon,Washington,Nevada,California,Utah,Idaho,and Wyoming. Despite early confrontations with the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) while working for the North West Company,he later became a senior official in the operations of the HBC's Columbia Department,serving as manager of Fort Simpson and similar posts.
The Bannock War of 1878 was an armed conflict between the U.S. military and Bannock and Paiute warriors in Idaho and northeastern Oregon from June to August 1878. The Bannock totaled about 600 to 800 in 1870 because of other Shoshone peoples being included with Bannock numbers. they were led by Chief Buffalo Horn,who was killed in action on June 8,1878. After his death,Chief Egan led the Bannocks. He and some of his warriors were killed in July by a Umatilla party that entered his camp in subterfuge.
Jim Baker (1818–1898),known as "Honest Jim Baker",was a frontiersman,trapper,hunter,army scout,interpreter,and rancher. He was first a trapper and hunter. The decline of the fur trade in the early 1840s drove many trappers to quit,but Baker remained in the business until 1855. During that time he was a friend of Jim Bridger,Kit Carson and John C. Frémont. On August 21,1841,he was among a group of twenty three trappers who were attacked by Arapaho,Cheyenne,and Sioux on what became known as Battle Mountain. After Henry Fraeb was killed,Baker organized the trappers against the Native Americans in a multiple-day fight.
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth was an American inventor and businessman in Boston,Massachusetts who contributed greatly to its ice industry. Due to his inventions,Boston could harvest and ship ice internationally. In the 1830s,he was also a mountain man who led two expeditions to the Northwest and set up two trading posts,one in present-day Idaho and one in present-day Oregon.
The Siskiyou Trail stretched from California's Central Valley to Oregon's Willamette Valley;modern-day Interstate 5 follows this pioneer path. Originally based on existing Native American foot trails winding their way through river valleys,the Siskiyou Trail provided the shortest practical travel path between early settlements in California and Oregon.
Joseph Goff Gale was an American pioneer,trapper,entrepreneur,and politician who contributed to the early settlement of the Oregon Country. There he assisted in the construction of the first sailing vessel built in what would become the state of Oregon,sailed the ship to California to trade for cattle,and later served as one of three co-executives ("governors") in the Provisional Government of Oregon. Originally a sailor,he also spent time in the fur trade,as a farmer,and a gold miner in the California Gold Rush.
The Columbia District was a fur trading district in the Pacific Northwest region of British North America in the 19th century. Much of its territory overlapped with the disputed Oregon Country. It was explored by the North West Company between 1793 and 1811,and established as an operating fur district around 1810. The North West Company was absorbed into the Hudson's Bay Company in 1821 under which the Columbia District became known as the Columbia Department. The Oregon Treaty of 1846 marked the effective end of the Hudson's Bay Company's Columbia Department.
Fort Boise is either of two different locations in the Western United States,both in southwestern Idaho. The first was a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) trading post near the Snake River on what is now the Oregon border,dating from the era when Idaho was included in the British fur company's Columbia District. After several rebuilds,the fort was ultimately abandoned in 1854,after it had become part of United States territory following settlement in 1846 of the northern boundary dispute.
Oregon pioneer history (1806–1890) is the period in the history of Oregon Country and Oregon Territory,in the present day state of Oregon and Northwestern United States.
Ewing Young was an American fur trapper and trader from Tennessee who traveled in what was then the northern Mexico frontier territories of Santa Fe de Nuevo México and Alta California before settling in the Oregon Country. Young traded along the Santa Fe Trail,followed parts of the Old Spanish Trail west,and established new trails. He later moved north to the Willamette Valley. As a prominent and wealthy citizen in Oregon,his death was the impetus for the assemblies that several years later established the Provisional Government of Oregon.
Fort William was a fur trading outpost built in 1834 by the American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth,a Boston merchant,backed by American investors. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island near the future Portland,Oregon. After a few years,in 1837 Wyeth sold the post to the British Hudson's Bay Company,which had much more power in the region from its base at Fort Vancouver on the north side of the Columbia River near Fort William.
Osborne Russell was a mountain man and politician who helped form the government of the U.S. state of Oregon. He was born in Maine.
Thomas McKay (1796–1849) was an Anglo-Métis Canadian fur trader who worked mainly in the Pacific Northwest for the Pacific Fur Company (PFC),the North West Company (NWC),and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC). He was a fur brigade leader and explorer of the Columbia District and later became a U.S. citizen and an early settler of Oregon.
The historic 2,170-mile (3,490 km) Oregon Trail connected various towns along the Missouri River to Oregon's Willamette Valley. It was used during the 19th century by Great Plains pioneers who were seeking fertile land in the West and North.
