Usually, the Oregon Trail began at Independence, Missouri. Pioneers started heading to California more than Oregon and other areas along the trail once the California Gold Rush started in 1848. 13. They became the first group of settlers to make the 2,170-mile trip along what would soon thereafter become known as the Oregon Trail. However, the trail for California also became known as the Santa Fe Trail. The Oregon Trail is also known as the Oregon-California Trail. Also, whenever a wagon train would depart, someone would yell out "Wagons Ho." The Oregon Trail became one of the key migration routes that pioneers crossed on their way to the vast west. Thereafter, migration on the Oregon Trail was an annual event, although the practice of traveling in giant convoys of wagons gave way to many smaller bands of one or two-dozen wagons. Don't let your dad die of dysentery. The player assumes the role of a wagon leader guiding his party of settlers from Independence, And in 1834, a merchant from New England named Nathaniel Wyeth and an Episcopalian missionary named Jason Lee led 80 people from Missouri to Oregon. Most travelers took 4-6 months to travel across the trail. The Oregon Trail: The Oregon Trail was an emigrant trail in the United States during the middle part of the 19th century. Spanning over half the continent the trail proceeded over 2,170 miles west through territories that would later become Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon. Facts, information and articles about The Oregon Trail, a part of Westward Expansion from the Wild West. The trail mostly followed the Platte River. The Oregon Trail was used in many capacities from 1811 into the 1870s, however, uses of the trail came in phases. The Oregon Trail is a computer game originally developed by Don Rawitsch, Bill Heinemann, and Paul Dillenberger in 1971 and produced by MECC in 1974. The Oregon Trail was a long trail that started at Independence, Missouri and ended in Oregon city on the Willamette River, approximately 2,000 miles away. Oregon Trail summary: The 2,200-mile east-west trail served as a critical transportation route for emigrants traveling from Missouri to Oregon and other points west during the mid-1800s. The original game was designed to teach school children about the realities of 19th century pioneer life on the Oregon Trail. Oregon Trail emigrants along the Sweetwater River came to a place where steep hills forced them to cross the stream three times within two miles—a dangerous option at high water—while a detour through deep sand was safer but slower: just another day on a long journey with hard choices. 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