Son of a Sailor

Pioneers, Wagon Trains, faint trails and promise of an easier and abundant life. Manifest Destiny.

After finishing the mostly down the mountains morning drive from Grand Teton National Park and Jackson Hole, we rolled into Montpelier, Idaho hungry and a bit travel weary. We found a lively Subway…past our turn off the 89…and caddy corner to the National Oregon/California Trail Center. The town of Montpelier is small but has been a crossroads for hundreds of years, with pioneer spirit in its veins.

The National Oregon/California Trail Center is one of several museums in the western US to tell the stories of the pioneers and travelers who emigrated west via the Oregon, California and Mormon Trails. These hardy souls were often newly minted Americans who arrived as immigrants and were lured by the promise of a new life and lush and free farmland in Oregon and California. These tales and rumors often flew from group to group, but history now tells us that there may have been an unofficial whisper campaign sponsored by the US Government to get Americans to the West Coast to claim it from both the Spanish and the Native Americans. This slowly building trickle of people heading west to the Oregon Territory started in the early 1850’s…before the Civil War and before there were railroads much west of Missouri. Regardless, thousands of hardy souls gave up their lives on the east coast to emigrate west, to claim manifest destiny and face the uncertain future in a promised land. We know that most pioneers started on one of the better known trails out of Independence/Kansas City, Missouri or from points just north of Kansas City, heading west along a fairly well defined trail until they wanted to bridge off to California or Utah. These folks often went by way of Ft Bridger, but defined and well known routes were still contentious and settlers often came to tragic ends on these long trips west. Besides the lack of maps, guides with knowledge, dangers of the actual trip, disease, starvation and hostile Native Americans and whites looking to take advantage; there was also a travel season that had to be understood and respected, as getting stuck on the plains or in the mountains without shelter, food or resources was a recipe for badness. There were very few actual paper maps and honest/experienced guides were hard to find and expensive to hire. Most settlers took their chances with strength in numbers and marginal guides, word of mouth and movement from known point to point.

The National Oregon/California Trail Center is a living history museum that tells the pioneer story but also tells the stories of the three largest trails that were used for westward movement; via living history enactments inside the museum. The museum also purports to actually sit on a portion of land that was often used as a camping and rest site by pioneer wagon trains…they say they’ve had the soil analyzed and found ash and cinder as evidence. Moving on….we went for the living history experience and loved it. We moved room to room as our guide discussed provisions for the trail, the wagon and the actual movement of the wagons and then into the living history areas. The stories told came from actual written diaries and papers from people who lived through the trail experience to make it to Oregon and start their own farms…their relatives are still there today, on the same land.

**First, our guide took us through provisioning and what we would need for the trail. Hmmm….medicine or opium?**

**Then our guide discussed the purchase of wagons and oxen/horses for pulling.**

**Then we got to sit in a simulated wagon ride, with smell and sounds of pulling oxen and the trail under us. It was bumpy.**

**Living history guides took us through several different wagon train rest stops.**

The living history tour of the museum is a big hit with most tourists, but what folks don’t realize is the Center is also a repository for 44 paintings created by famed western artist Gary Stone and donated to the museum by the Simplot Family (one of America’s richest families). These 44 paintings hung originally for a week in the rotunda of the US Senate and eventually made their way to the museum. To make sure the paintings were as authentic as possible, Gary Stone and his wife traveled the Oregon Trail via wagon train, as he photographed and documented historic sites and created the 44 different paintings of life on the trail.