The Oregon Trail was a legendary migration route that brought settlers from Missouri to Oregon during the era of westward expansion in the 1800’s. The trail spanned over 2,170 miles through Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho and Oregon, through the Great Plains and over the Rocky Mountains. Settlers were offered free land (until 1854) in Oregon’s Willamette Valley for making the brutal journey on their prairie schooners. The trail was used from 1841 to 1869. The average family made it to Oregon City in about four months. It was rendered obsolete in 1869, with the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad.
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