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Mountain men survived by being tough and resourceful. They spent
most of the year alone, trapping small animals such as beavers.
Easterners wanted beaver furs to make the men’s hats that were in fashion
at the time. Jedediah Smith and
Jim Beckwourth became famous as rugged loners. One businessman, William Henry Ashley, created a
trading arrangement called the rendezvous system.
Under this system, individual trappers came to a prearranged
site for a rendezvous with traders from the east.
The trappers bought supplies from those traders and
paid them in furs. The rendezvous took place every summer
from 1825 to 1840. In that year, silk hats replaced
beaver hats as the fashion, and the fur trade died out.

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After Mexico gained independence
from Spain in 1821, it opened its borders to American traders,
whom Spain had kept out. The Missouri trader William Becknell set out with hardware, cloth, and china for Santa Fe, capital of the
Mexican province of New Mexico. By doing so, he opened the Santa Fe
Trail, which led from Missouri to Santa Fe. Once in Santa Fe, he made a large profit because the New Mexicans were eager for new merchandise. News spread that New Mexico was a place where traders could become rich. The following spring, Becknell headed to Santa Fe again. This time he loaded his trade goods into covered wagons, which Westerners called prairie schooners. Their billowing white canvas tops made them look
like schooners, or sailing ships. Becknell could not haul wagons over the mountain pass he had used on his first trip to Santa Fe. Instead, he found a cutoff, a shortcut that avoided steep slopes but passed through a deadly desert to the south. As his traders crossed the burning sands, they ran out of water. Crazed by thirst, they lopped off mules’ ears and killed their dogs to drink the animals’ blood. Finally, the men found a stream. The water saved them from death, and they reached Santa Fe, Becknell returned home with another huge profit. Before long, hundreds of traders and prairie schooners braved the cutoff to make the 800-mile journey from Missouri to New Mexico each year.

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The Mormons, who settled Utah, were members
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Joseph Smith had
founded this church in upstate New York in 1830. In 1844, an anti-Mormon mob in Illinois killed Smith. Brigham
Young, the next Mormon leader, moved his people out of the United
States. His destination was Utah, then part of Mexico. In 1847, about 1,600 Mormons followed part of the Oregon Trail to
Utah. There they built a new settlement by the Great Salt Lake.

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Such stories tempted many people to make the 2,000-mile journey to
Oregon. In 1843, nearly 1,000 people traveled from Missouri to Oregon.
The next year, twice as many came. “The Oregon Fever has broken out,”
observed a Boston newspaper, “and is now raging.”