The first major wagon train to the Pacific Northwest departed
from Elm Grove, Missouri, on the Oregon Trail.
Some 1,000 people and 5,000 oxen and cattle set out on May
22, participating in what became known as the Great
Emigration of 1843.
This first major wagon train successfully completed the
grueling ~2,000-mile journey to Oregon’s Willamette Valley
in about five months.
The trail was heavily traveled until 1884, when the Union
Pacific constructed a railway along the route.
