The Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail story is well covered on TTTP Oregon and TTTP Idaho pages, so we repeat it here to show that many people who came from Iowa or Missouri by the main emigrant trail when getting to Oregon branched north to settle in Washington Territory instead.

On this map emigrants to Washington Territory south east left the Oregon Trail at the 1836 Whitman cutoff. Others stopped at the Dalles where they loaded their wagons onto rafts, crossed the river and traveled north-west to settle the Yakima Valley. Still others went down river as far as Oregon City and from there crossed the Columbia and traveled north to settle in where the I5 corridor. Some traveled to the mouth of the Columbia, by wagon train or float boat, and settled the west coast of Washington. Last and fewest people entered north-west Washington through Idaho to settle around Spokane. As steam boats began to visit Seattle more people traveled that route. Around 1895 the train came and people began to arrive by train.