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US geography games galore - over 38 fun online map games teach capitals, state locations, and more. Also info on the United States culture, history, and much more

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The Transcontinental Railroad was a dream come true for many businesspeople and politicians in America, providing a link for goods and communication from the East Coast to the West Coast. The Golden Spike was struck in 1869, but planning for the coast-to-coast route began much earlier.

The exploration of the Louisiana Territory by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark had included a journey to the Pacific Coast. Not long after, a chance find of gold in California ushered in the Gold Rush. The American victory in the Mexican-American War had brought a large amount of new territory into the Union. Settlers ventured west, in search of fortune and new homesteads, traveling on the Oregon Trail, Santa Fe Trail, California Trail, and many other routes.

The advent of the railroad made possible a nationwide network of railroads, along the lines of the East Coast-to-Midwest network of canals that had sprung up in the early part of the 19th Century. The first railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, made a name for itself by building on the success of the Tom Thumb and illustrating that a rail network was possible.

Other rail networks sprung up across the country. The main problem with joining up existing rail networks, though, was that not all tracks were the same. More precisely, many tracks used many different size tracks. It was not easy getting goods from one place to another if the transport had to include different rail networks.

The goal of a nationwide rail network was a special project for President Abraham Lincoln, elected in 1860 on the eve of the Civil War. California had become a state in 1850, and many in the North wanted to cement California's place in the Union by building a railroad to the Golden State. The inclusion in that rail line of other territories acquired in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo would potentially solidify control of those territories as well.

The same year that Lincoln was elected, the Pony Express began. Although it lasted a short time, the Pony Express proved that a transportation network from the Midwest to the West Coast was possible.

Once talk of building a nationwide rail network grew serious, organizers began to lay plans for the route. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis oversaw the Pacific Railroad Surveys, a number of explorations by scientists and surveyors in search of possible routes, encompassing about 400,000 square miles in all.

One of the main surveys was done by Theodore Judah, a chief engineer for the Sacramento Valley Railroad, the first railroad west of the Mississippi River. Judah submitted a 13,000-word proposal for a Pacific railroad to members of Congress and the Cabinet, and he received the funding to conduct a survey to find a suitable route through the rugged Sierra Nevada Mountains.

Lewis & Clark had reached the West Coast by going through Montana and Oregon. Their route, rail organizers thought, would be too prone to snow in the winter. A more central route was sought. (Proponents of a southern route found their arguments overtaken by events, as the secession of the Southern States eliminated the southern route as a possibility, even though the Gadsden Purchase had made possible such a route.) One thing that the Pony Express also proved was that the central route, utilizing lower passes through the western mountains, could be used for railroads because the snow wasn't prohibitive. Horses could go up steeper grades than railroad engines, though.

Another champion of the central route was Asa Whitney, a cousin of Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin. Whitney, who traveled far and wide at his own expense to promote the central route, proposed that finances could be shared by settlers buying land along the route.

On June 20, 1862, the Senate approved a House of Representatives bill passed on May 6, authorizing funding for the Transcontinental Railroad. President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill into law, and contracts were awarded to two companies, Central Pacific and Union Pacific. The law wasn't exactly designed to protect the U.S. Treasury, as government officials discovered when the railroad companies took advantage of the rather generous terms that guaranteed payment of $16,000 a mile for flat land, $32,000 a mile for the high plains, and $48,000 a mile for mountainous terrain. Payment was made by the mile, and the two rail companies went out of their way (literally) to tack on extraneous miles to the route. (This led eventually to the bankruptcy of Union Pacific, mainly because of the efforts of the company's vice president, Thomas Durant, and to the Credit Mobilier scandal.)

Central Pacific was run by four directors: James Bailey, a jeweler; Charles Crocker, a seller of dry goods; Mark Hopkins, a hardware merchant and business partner of Asa Whitney; and Leland Stanford, a grocer. Each of these men posted $1,500 to create the company.

Sacramento was chosen as the western terminus, and Central Pacific was tasked with building track east from Sacramento. After much discussion, Lincoln himself selected the eastern terminus to be Council Bluffs, Iowa, and Union Pacific began laying track westward from there.

Central Pacific began its efforts on January 8, 1863, with Leland Stanford, who by then had been elected governor of California, attending the ceremony. To facilitate the building beginning on the West Coast, Central Pacific had shipped many parts from the East Coast, aboard ships. Some engines and cars had to be dismantled for boat transport and then reassembled in the Sacramento shipyards.

Because of a few difficulties, including funding and (most prominently) the Civil War, Union Pacific started two years later, in July of 1865.

Both railroads used the same gauge (distance between the wheels), 4 feet, 8.5 inches. Tracks were laid to accommodate that gauge.

Survey teams set out to find the most suitable routes, indicating which waterways would have to be crossed, which hills would have to be cut, and which mountains would require tunnels to get through. Engineers provided advice on how to make the most of the terrain and the available technology.

Laying track was not the easiest job in the world, and thousands of Americans, Chinese, and Irish workers labored to build the railroad. Workers had to dig the rail bed, then lay in wood and the rails and surrounding materials. Workers had to blast tunnels through the mountains, eventually using dynamite, invented by Alfred Nobel in 1867. Central Pacific built 15 tunnels on its route, the longest 1659 feet in length. Construction was especially slow going in the mountains. The route wound through a low pass, but the route still went through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. To keep work going through the winter, workers built dozens of miles of huge wooden show sheds to cover the tracks; as a result, avalanches and snow drifts blew over the wooden "rooves" and didn't cover the tracks or the workers laying them down underneath.

Laying track across flatter ground was less time-consuming. One Central Pacific crew laid 10 miles of track in one day.

Many other jobs were required as well. Cooks were needed to prepare food for the laborers, who also needed somewhere to live and acquire provisions. Blacksmiths were needed, as were carpenters and clothing manufacturers and repairers. Also necessary were medical teams: accidents were not uncommon.

One prime obstacle to the building of the Transcontinental Railroad was the wildlife living on the Great Plains. Cows and bison were two of the prime animal constraints, so much so that early train engines were fitted with a pointed wedge of iron bars called a "cow catcher," which helped move a cow (or a bison or any other kind of large animal) off the tracks without causing harm.

Rail crews found resistance from Native Americans, as well. In the same way that the Westward Movement disrupted Native American tribes and lands, the building of the Transcontinental Railroad solidified the European settlers' growing sway over the Great Plains. Frustrated Native Americans robbed rail crews of their livestock, time and again. Raids on rail-building crews were not uncommon. More frequent were raids on surveyors, who went out in advance of the track-laying crews and were more vulnerable as a result. In 1867, a Cheyenne tribe sabotaged part of the rail line, resulting in the deaths of several workers aboard a handcar. A year later, Sioux raiders dismantled rail lines, resulting in a derailment and several deaths.

Not all Native American tribes were hostile to the coming of the railroad, however. Pawnee welcomed the railroad (not the least because they wanted support against their enemy the Sioux). Relations between members of the Pawnee tribe and Union Pacific crews were so good that the Native Americans provided a security patrol as the rail line was built through Sioux land.

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The Transcontinental Railroad was a dream come true for many businesspeople and politicians in America, providing a link for goods and communication from the East Coast to the West Coast. The Golden Spike was struck in 1869, but planning for the coast-to-coast route began much earlier.

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Western Expansion for Kids - The Transcontinental Railroad of 1862 - FREE American History Lesson Plans & Games for Kids

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What does the term “transcontinental” mean? Transcontinental means going across a continent. In the US that would mean from coast to coast.

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history/history of the united states/exploration and expansion (1783-1860)/westward expansion/california gold rush

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WatchKnowLearn - Free K-12 educational videos

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Free K-12 educational videos ... organized. Tens of thousands of excellent, educational videos in a huge, intuitive directory. Organized, reviewed, rated, and described by teachers. Ideal as a supplement to a curriculum or for independent study. Designed for teachers, students, parents, homeschoolers, educators ... and all life-long learners!

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This page describes the history and impact of the Erie Canal on Westward Expansion.

The Erie Canal

Transportation Between the Atlantic Ocean and Great Lakes

During the early 1800's, the new United States of America began to develop plans to build a waterway to transport goods from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes region through the imposing Appalachian Mountains. Prior to construction of the Erie Canal, the transportation of goods to the western states was cumbersome and very expensive.

New York to Pay for Construction of the Erie Canal

In 1816, a plan was formulated to make the Erie Canal. The canal would link the major port of New York City to the Hudson River near Troy, New York. From Troy, the canal would then link the Hudson River to western cities in New York such as Rome, Syracuse, Rochester and Buffalo. From Buffalo, on Lake Erie, goods could be transported to the canal from the western Great Lakes. Hence, goods could be shipped from anywhere in the Great Lakes to major urban centers such as New York City. Although the plan was rejected by president James Monroe, the New York State Legislature approved the plan and planned to pay for the canal by charging tolls for those who used it. Governor DeWitt Clinton was a major proponent of the plan.

Seven Years in the Making

The canal took over seven years to complete. Laborers had to literally dig the massive canal with simple shovels through mountainous areas. Farmers who lived along the canal often contracted workers to build portions of the canal through their land. Many foreign immigrants were paid well to help build the canal. The 363 mile-long, 40 foot wide Erie Canal was completed on October 25, 1825.

The Erie Canal Prompted the Growth of Cities near the Great Lakes

The Erie Canal revolutionized life for many in America. Not only did its construction result in drastic differences in shipping costs, but it prompted huge population growths in the Great Lakes region. People began to move closer to large cities because goods could easily be transported via the Erie Canal to urban areas, and goods could also be shipped west from the cities. The $7,000,000 cost of the canal was quickly covered by tolls. Tolls were eliminated soon after the cost of the canal was reclaimed.

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This page describes the history and impact of the Erie Canal on Westward Expansion. The Erie Canal During the early 1800's, the new United States of America began to develop plans to build a waterway to transport goods from the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes region through the imposing Appalachian Mountains.

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Kids learn about the biography of Sitting Bull. Chief of the Lakota Sioux Nation and leader of the Indians at the Battle of Little Big Horn.

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Erie Canal

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Kids learn about the Erie Canal including how long it is, when it was built, its importance to the Industrial Revolution, and interesting facts. Educational article for students, schools, and teachers.

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In 1848, James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, found flakes of gold in a river near Sacramento, California. He was building a saw mill for John Sutter. Although Sutter and Marshall tried to keep the find a secret, word quickly got out when Sam Brannon, a local shopkeeper, marched through town carrying a vial filled with gold flakes from Sutter's Mill.

Within a year, thousands of men poured into the area. Initially, they arrived from other places in the west, including Oregon and Hawaii. Over time, word spread to the eastern United States. Men left their homes and families to seek their fortunes.
Fun Facts

Between 1848 and 1849, the population of California grew by over 100,000.

Gold mining towns sprang up to take care of the miners. The towns had stores, saloons, and hotels. Few women and children lived here. The towns were often rough and lawless.

Over 750 pounds of gold were taken out of the ground during the California Gold Rush - more than $2 billion worth.

By the mid-1850s, the Gold Rush was over, but people still came to California. In 1850, California became the 31st

California wasn't the only place where people went looking for gold. Gold was discovered in Colorado in 1859, almost 10 years after the Colorado Gold Rush. Thousands of miners flocked to Colorado, creating the cities of Denver and Boulder, as well as smaller mining towns in the mountains. Some of these towns, like Idaho Springs and Central City, are still around. Others are ghost towns.

In 1896, three men discovered gold in a creek in Dawson, Canada, a remote area near Alaska. Few people knew about the discovery until a steamer ship arrived in Seattle carrying more than a ton of gold. Then, the Klondike Gold Rush started! More than 100,000 men began the journey to the Yukon, but only 30,000 made it. The journey was very difficult. Many died from starvation, illness, or injury along the way. Those that did make it found that most of the gold mines had been claimed.

Vocabulary

1. Saw mill: a factory capable of turning raw lumber into boards for building

2. Vial: a small tube or container, usually made of glass

3. Lawless: uncivilized, violent, without order

Questions and Answers
Question: Did a lot of people become rich looking for gold?

Answer: No. Most of the men who traveled to find gold ended up working for the men who owned the mines. Mining was hard, dangerous work and while these workers received fair wages, they certainly didn't become wealthy. Both men and women became wealthy by being savvy business owners. Instead of looking for gold, they set up hotels, dance halls, and other businesses needed by the miners.
Learn More
Visit Scholastic for a printable mini-book about the California Gold Rush.

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Fun Gold Rush Facts for Kids - American History

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In 1848, James Wilson Marshall, a carpenter from New Jersey, found flakes of gold in a river near Sacramento, California. He was building a saw mill for John Sutter. Although Sutter and Marshall tried to keep the find a secret, word quickly got out when Sam Brannon, a local shopkeeper, marched through town carrying a vial filled with gold flakes from Sutter's Mill.

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What factors, forces or reasons cause people to move from one geographic area to another? The first people to live in what we now call Iowa may have arrived some 8,000-10,000 years ago. They lived along the edges of the receding glaciers and hunted large game animals.

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Pioneer children would have to help with household chores. Life on the prairie was hard. Children would stop working with household chores around age ten.

Young Pioneer children worked gathering eggs, feeding animals, and making soap and candles.

Pioneer children worked hard, but they still made time for fun.

Older Pioneer children (around age 11-17):

Older pioneer children would mostly do most of the cloth washing and laundry.

These older kids started to attend school. The younger children (9 and younger) did not go to school at the time. There were no desks in the school. Only stone slabs to write on. The school was only a one room log school.

The older children would also pull crops out in the fields.

The pioneer women did not stop working until the sunset, they actually did MOST of the work on the trail.

Pioneer women spent their day looking after for her children, cooking, cleaning, making candles and soap, doing laundry, and helping her husband and older kids in the fields.

Most pioneer women had a large family, so they would mostly take care of her kids.

Before the day, Pioneer men and grandfathers would take care of animals in the barn by milking cows, and cleaning up after the rest of the animals.

The men would sometimes get off track and have horse races and bet money of certain horses.

Sunday morning, the men would go to a gathering. Sort of like a church. They would discuss beliefs and things that would happen on the trail daily.

Some games they would play was "Hoops and Sticks". Hoops and Sticks was about throwing rusty metal pieces of horseshoes onto hooks. Just like the game, Horseshoes.

They would also do spelling bees, and hunt animals like foxes and deer for fun and also for survival.

They had many other games that were complicated to explain.

Some transportation the Pioneers used were, Stagecoach, and the milk-wagon.

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Pioneer children would have to help with household chores. Life on the prairie was hard. Children would stop working with household chores around age ten. Young Pioneer children worked gathering eggs, feeding animals, and making soap and candles. Pioneer children worked hard, but they still made time for fun.

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Kids learn about the California Gold Rush from the Old West. Thousands of people move to the west to search for gold and strike it rich.

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The Oregon Trail was a 2,000-mile route to the West for thousands of settlers in 19th Century America. The Trail ran through what is now Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon.

The idea of reaching the West Coast began soon after Thomas Jefferson announced the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803, and commissioned Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to chart the course of the territory through to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark and the Corps of Discovery spent the better part of the next three years getting there and back again, and their reports emboldened many others to travel westward, sometimes for good. An 1810 expedition financed by famed furrier John Jacob Astor mapped out a slightly different route west.

After the War of 1812, the British presence on what is now the western part of the Oregon Trail increased, mainly through the efforts of the Hudson's Bay Company. So did the number of Americans traveling west, if more gradually. The first large wave of settlers set out in 1836, and numbers increased during the next few decades, in nearly inverse proportion to the decline of fur trading, as markets for new goods found more favor. Among the first organized group of settlers were the Peoria Party, named after the city from which they set out, Peoria, Ill. Led by Thomas J. Farnham, they carried a flag with the motto "Oregon or the Grave" and traveled most of the Oregon Trail, finally reaching the West Coast. More than 100 pioneers, led by Elijah White, set out in 1842, from Elm Grove, Mo.; not all of this group made it. In 1843 alone, up to 1,000 settlers left their homes for new living quarters in Oregon. This came to be known as the "Great Migration of 1843."

The U.S. Government sponsored more than just Lewis & Clark. Explorers like Captain Benjamin Bonneville, John C. Frémont, and Kit Carson ranged far and wide and wrote about their experiences.

The Oregon Trail wasn't an unbroken dirt road running direct from one place to the next; rather, it was a series of paths, trails, and wagon roads. Technically, the Trail wound from Independence, Mo., to Oregon City. As traffic on the Trail increased, other towns on the route became starting points; among these were the Kansas towns of Atchison and Leavenworth, the Missouri towns of St. Joseph and Weston; and the Nebraska town of Omaha.

Other well-known settler trails were the Bozeman Trail, California Trail, Chisholm Trail, Mormon Trail, and Santa Fe Trail. The longest and most popular, however, was the Oregon Trail.

The trails generally followed the Platte River and other waterways, passing through river valleys to enable access to fresh water and to grass for the animals doing the heavy lifting. Travelers were often in need of fire-burning materials. These often included trees, brush, abandoned wagons, and even animal droppings (the ever-popular "buffalo chips").

Settlers traveled west along the Oregon Trail using combinations of walking or riding horses, and carrying supplies and necessities in covered wagons, known as prairie schooners, which were pulled by anywhere from 4 to 10 oxen or mules. (Horses were used to pull the wagons only in later years.) The well-known Conestoga wagons were, for the most part, too large and unwieldy for the arduous Oregon Trail, so settlers used prairie schooners instead. These wagons were typically 11 feet long, feet wide, and feet high and featured cotton covers treated with linseed oil, in an attempt to keep out dust, rain, and wind. Wheels were made of iron-rimmed wood and were 40-50 inches in diameter. The wagons were, for the most part, much too bumpy to ride in, despite popular artwork to the contrary.

Travelers did not go west in straight lines. They spread out along the prairies and through the valleys, mainly to cut down on dust inhalation. They did resort to single file through narrow passes, however.

Journeys to Oregon commonly took four or five months. Travelers took lots of food, stored in watertight containers or carried in packs. Some travelers traded what they carried for other types of food grown by people along the way. Some travelers took chickens, cows, and pigs with them, to use as food. Cooking was done over campfires. Not all meals were cooked. Travelers carried water, sometimes lots of it, but also depended on getting water along the way. (For this reason, a good part of the Oregon Trail was along waterways.)

Travelers generally brought several sets of clothes, most importantly multiple sets of boots, and spare leather and threads and a few hand tools, to repair or replace clothing. Among the possessions kits were soap, washboards, and tubs, for cleaning the clothes.

The common sleeping arrangement was on thin bedrolls, on the ground, inside tents (or under the night sky if the weather was good). Pregnant or infirm travelers or very young children sometimes slept on feather beds, inside wagons. Sleeping inside a wagon was not unheard of for otherwise healthy travelers as well.

Conditions could be rough, and travelers commonly carried all manner of tools, including axes, shovels, hoes, hammers, saws, hatchets, picks, and crow bars.

Sharing was essential for many travelers. Pooling of resources, including money, was quite common. Money was also essential to replace or obtain things broken or forgotten.

With lots of time on their hands, travelers on the Oregon Trail found comfort in books, not just trail guides but as well the Bible and other popular publications. They also wrote letters, to drop at forts or posts along the way.

For the most part, expendable items got left behind. Some travelers filled needs by picking up items discarded by previous travelers; others returned home with discards, selling them for a profit.

Dangers were not unknown on the Oregon Trail. travelers encountered unfamiliar wildlife and sometimes hostile humans. Weather could be capricious, and supplies often ran low. Some mothers died in childbirth. Some young children didn't survive the ardors of the trip. Many travelers died, although exact figures are still not known, primarily because those who died along the way were usually buried in unmarked graves, to prevent looting.

Disease was also common. Travelers' diets were sometimes low in fresh fruits and vegetables; and during the four-month trip, some travelers suffered from scurvy because of a lack of vitamin C. Other diseases, such as cholera, were familiar killers.

One of the last stops on the journey west was Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia River. For a time, John McLoughlin was in charge at this fort. He helped so many settlers reach new homesteads that he became known as the "Father of Oregon." Other Hudson's Bay Company outposts were Fort Boise and Fort Nez Perce, both of which were quite happy to sell supplies to Oregon Trail pioneers.

Travelers were still using the Oregon Trail while the Civil War was raging, but the advent of a railroad across Panama, allowing for ship-then-rail-then-ship-again travel, and then another, more famous railroad across the continental United States gave travelers much faster alternatives. The arrival of the automobile all but closed the Trail, with some state federal and state highways literally paving over parts of the Trail.

The Oregon Trail didn't just disappear one day. Its use declined gradually. Signs of it can still be seen today, as can some wagon wheel tracks. It is now a National Historic Trail, with designating markers in several states.

Many travelers didn't make it all the way to the West Coast, preferring to set up homestead along the way. This, in combination, with an influx of new settlers in Oregon and California, helped push the boundaries of the United States ever westward.

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report this ad The Oregon Trail was a 2,000-mile route to the West for thousands of settlers in 19th Century America. The Trail ran through what is now Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon.

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Find a summary, definition and facts about the Oregon Trail for kids. Map of the Oregon Trail and its landmarks. Dangers and hardships along the Oregon Trail for kids, children, homework and schools.

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For Kids

Why did Americans want to travel 2,000 miles to settle in the West? Many went to escape the crowding and poverty of the cities of the East. Others went to escape from crimes or creditors. Some wanted land of their own to farm, and the Homestead Act made that possible. Some received letters from friends or family who had moved west, encouraging them to join them on the frontier. Whatever the reason, and in spite of the dangers from illness, exhaustion, bad weather, snake bites, dirt, dust, robbers and rough terrain, many thousands of Americans did go west. Wagons hauled goods, but people had to walk 2,000 miles. Faced with the hardships of the trail, some people gave up and went back home.

The Oregon Trail was an actual path. By 1843, when the first large wagon train was organized, a route existed across the continent from Independence, Missouri to the Pacific Ocean. It was an actual trail, mostly connected, created by Indians and trappers. The period 1843-1855 saw the heaviest traffic on the Oregon Trail. As wagons headed west, this trail became more defined. In places, the path became 6-10 feet deep and 50-100 feet wide. Oregon Trail Interactive Map

What was a wagon train? A wagon train was a group of covered wagons that traveled together, headed west, in a straight line. There was a wagon master, called a captain, who was in charge. At night, the captain would direct the wagons to form a circle for protection from bandits and other dangers. The captain decided when the wagon train would break for the night and where the train would cross a river. If disagreements between people broke out, the captain acted as judge. Wagon trains also had scouts who knew the routes and rode ahead on horseback to watch out for dangers. Scouts assisted the captain.

How did you find a wagon train to join? Most wagon trains left from Missouri or Iowa. Wagon trains were businesses. They took reservations. People booked passage, but had to purchase their own supplies including oxen and wagons. Many pioneers arrived in Missouri or Iowa in the fall, spent the winter preparing for the trip, and left with a wagon train in the spring. Some wagon trains were organized by people from the same town or area.

Wagons: Most pioneers purchased modified or manufactured wagons designed for the trip. Some had built-in features like sleeping berths and false floors over large storage areas. Some wagons were very simple. Some families had more than one wagon. Travelers were warned not to bring too much. But many people packed so much that oxen died and wagons broke from the weight. Possessions like cooking stoves, pianos, organs, rugs, grandfather clocks, and even tools had to be abandoned on the trail.

What did they take with them? A wagon held about 2,000 pounds of goods. People were advised to carry enough food to feed their individual families for at least 5 months. Wagons held dried food and staples like flour, sugar, a substance similar to baking soda, coffee, tea, cornmeal, bacon, crackers, dried meats, dried fruits, dried beans, split peas, oatmeal, vinegar, salt port, potatoes, rice, yeast, salt, and a barrel of water. They made their own clothes so they brought needles, thread, pins, scissors, and sometimes even cloth and leather. They had to make their own repairs so they brought saws, nails, knives, hammers, shovels and string. Tools were important but heavy, so they had to be carefully selected.

Food: The pioneers created recipes to cook over a campfire. Baking bread was a daily activity. Bacon was the second most popular food item on the trail. The most common meat was probably squirrel. Some pioneers took a cow with them, so they would have fresh milk. Coffee cake was invented on the trail. It was made with mostly dried fruit.

Clothes: Clothes had to last. The clothing the pioneers bought with them was all they had to wear, unless they could buy or trade for clothes along the trail. Between dust, dirt, sweat, rips and tears, clothing took quite a beating. As one piece of clothing wore out, it was used to patch other pieces, make quilts, or remake into children's clothing. After traveling 2,000 miles, everyday clothing was typically worn out. On the trail:

The pioneers wore sturdy thick boots, usually make of leather. Towards the end of trail, shoes that were worn out were replaced with rags.

Women and girls wore everyday dresses made of calico, a type of cotton print with an allover design. Dresses had narrow collars, fitted bodices that buttoned up the front, with attached full sleeves, and long attached full pleated skirts. Aprons were worn over dresses to protect their dresses and to carry items such as wood or buffalo chips.

Men and boys wore pants, vests over calico shirts, and coats of wool or leather.

Hats were part of every outfit to protect the pioneers from the weather and the dust. Men's hats were wide-brimmed and made of straw or leather. Women wore cotton sunbonnets.

Clothes that started out new or clean soon had ground in dirt and dust. It was hard to clean clothes on the trail.

School & Chores: There was little time for schooling. Everyone helped with chores.

Toys and Games: Kids had to leave their toys and friends behind. But they created new games. One of their favorites was buffalo turd toss. Kids tossed turds (dried buffalo poop) like frisbees. They soon learned that large flat turds broke apart too easily and burned too rapidly. When seeking turds for firewood or for their game, they looked for smaller, thicker, round turds. These turds burned longer, without odor, and were perfect for cooking dinner. Until they reached the Rocky Mountains, buffalo turds were everywhere.

How far did a wagon train travel in one day? They started before dawn, after breakfast. They stopped for an hour or two at lunchtime. They continued on until late afternoon. If it was muddy, they might spend the entire day to travel one mile. If the ground was dry or solid, they might move forward as many as 5 or 10 miles. (Today, by car, we would travel the same distance in about an hour.) At night, inside the circle, the women fixed dinner. The men took care of the livestock. Kids got a chance to play. After supper, they might sing songs or dance. It was important to keep their spirits up. But sometimes all they wanted to do was sleep. They slept inside the circle in good weather and under their wagons in bad weather. Some people even slept inside their wagon, especially as food supplies dwindled, leaving more room inside. In the morning, it all started over again. This continued day after day for months.

Stopovers: They did take a break now and then. Wagons trains would stop occasionally by a river or a spring for two days, to give people time to wash clothes and repair wagons, tents, and tools. These were very necessary stops. People needed time to regroup and recover, and to remember why they were risking their lives to head west.

Life on the Oregon Trail (pbs)
Fun with Buffalo dung - it's not just for firewood anymore All about the trail - hardships, Native Americans, and more, for kids
Oregon Trail for Kids (wartgames)

For Teachers
Wagon Trains, powerpoints
Oregon Trail, powerpoints
Oregon Trail - Free iPad apps Free Use Clip Art Western Expansion Index

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Why did Americans want to travel 2,000 miles to settle in the West? Many went to escape the crowding and poverty of the cities of the East. Others went to escape from crimes or creditors. Some wanted land of their own to farm, and the Homestead Act made that possible.

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Fun facts bout the Oregon Trail for Kids

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Imagine traveling in a small covered wagon . Between 1841 and 1845, more than 5,000 people traveled the Oregon Trail, from Missouri to Oregon.

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The Pony Express

The Pony Express is one of the most enduring symbols of the Westward Expansion of the United States.

It began as a way to maintain communication between the "old" U.S. and the "new" state of California, which entered the Union in 1850. The Pony Express was primarily a mail-carry system. Riders carried the mail in satchels, and speed was the name of the game.

Before the Pony Express, the U.S. had three main methods of getting mail to the West Coast.

One was by ship, from New York or other ports, across the Isthmus of Panama (no Panama Canal yet) by mule, then by another ship to San Francisco. Most of the mail traveled on this route.

Another route used covered wagons and stagecoaches and went relatively straight across the country, from Independence, Missouri, to Sacramento, California.

The third route was also covered wagons and stagecoaches and had a name and reputation. It was the Butterfield Overland Mail Company, and its route went on a southern path to the West coast.

By the time the Civil War was brewing, however, Northern states wanted more rapid communication with California. That, coupled with increases in settlement in the lands in between the Midwest and the West Coast, helped bring about the beginning of the Pony Express.

It was the brainchild of William H. Russell, William B. Waddell, and Alexander Majors. A 1966-mile trail was agreed on from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento. The first riders left on April 3, 1860. They left from both St. Joseph and Sacramento. The western journey took 9 days and 23 hours. The eastern journey took 11 days and 12 hours.

Why the two journeys took different times to arrive illustrates the natural hazard of the Pony Express: It was dangerous! Riders had little protection, from people or from the weather. The route went through the Rocky Mountains, which often had snow well into the spring and early summer. Much of this territory wasn't entirely settled yet, and riders made easy targets for bandits or even Native Americans who didn't want their lands taken over.

The Pony Express riders' best asset was the speed of their horses. A rider on healthy horses could cover 250 miles in a day, more than twice what a covered wagon or stagecoach could. For this reason (as well as to get the mail back and forth as quickly as possible), riders changed horses every 75 miles or so, at "way stations" along the route. Riders wouldn't ride the entire way. Often, they would ride several hundred miles and then give way to other riders (and horses).

Riders had to weigh less than 125 pounds, so they wouldn't overload the horses. The riders' ages varied, from 11 to nearly 50. They earned $100 a month, which was better pay than they could doing other "less exciting" jobs. One of the most famous riders was Buffalo Bill Cody.

The Pony Express at its height included 183 riders, 165 way stations, and between 400 and 500 horses. It was a short-lived enterprise, however. The last rider completed his route on October 24, 1861, just 19 months after the Pony Express began. The introduction of the telegraph made the Pony Express unnecessary.

The company that started the Pony Express also lost lots of money. They put up $700,000 initially and ended up losing $200,000 more. Only one rider was ever lost. Only one mail shipment was ever lost. The dramatic nature of the enterprise, however, has made the Pony Express live in on the American memory.

Click here for more Pony Express facts.

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The Pony Express The Pony Express is one of the most enduring symbols of the Westward Expansion of the United States. It began as a way to maintain communication between the "old" U.S. and the "new" state of California, which entered the Union in 1850. The Pony Express was primarily a mail-carry system.

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The California Gold Rush

The discovery of gold in California in the mid-19th Century ushered in one of the largest migrations in American history, as tens of thousands of hopeful, excited, and just plain desperate participated in the California Gold Rush.

It all began on January 24, 1848, on the South Fork of the American River, near what is now the California town of Coloma. John Sutter had hired a number of people to build a saw mill in the area, and James Marshall was one of the people doing the constructing. On that fateful day, Marshall saw tiny pieces of gold in the runoff millwater. He collected some of the gold pieces and showed them to Sutter, who swore Marshall to secrecy.

Despite this agreement, the story got out, possibly because Marshall wouldn't have been the only one to notice the gold in the millwater. Nevertheless, the story was soon a well-travelled one, with a publisher named Samuel Brannan soon walking up and down the streets of San Francisco holding a jar full of gold. The first major East Coast newspaper to report Marshall's discovery, the New York Herald, did so on August 19. President James K. Polk told the nation about the gold discovery in an address to Congress on December 5. Before long, the rush was on and '49ers, as they were called (after the year in which they set out, 1849), descended on California by the tens of thousands.

In 1849, the gold-motivated migrants numbered 80,000. Most of those were Americans in 1849, but the following few years saw gold-seekers come from all over the world. By 1856, more than 300,000 people had followed their gold dreams to what they hoped were the gold fields of California.

In the beginning, prospectors could find gold nuggets by sifting through the top one or two layers of dirt or in streams and riverbeds, using methods such as panning. As the gold supply dwindled and desire for gold increased, prospectors employed more sophisticated methods.

Many of the '49ers and other prospectors who came to California in search of a dream found they liked the place enough to stay. San Francisco went from an 1846 population of 200 to an 1852 population of 36,000. Other California cities and towns experienced similar growth. As a result, California became a state, in 1850, its infrastructure growing by leaps and bounds: Schools, churches, roads, and businesses rose from empty land, as many people found themselves earning a good living by providing goods and services to prospectors. Supply stores, warehouses, taverns, and hotels dotted the landscape, surrounding the areas where gold was known to be.

Modern-day estimates from the U.S. Government put the amount of gold discovered in the first five years of the California Gold Rush at 12 million ounces, worth more than $16 billion in today's dollars.

Many settlers made homes for themselves by displacing (and, in some cases, ending the lives of) Native Americans, continuing a Manifest Destiny trend that had begun in the East and continued in the Midwest and South.

Many others chasing their dreams found nothing but frustration. Many prospecting hopefuls spent all of the money that they had on the search for great wealth and ended up with none of their own. For many, the travel to California would have cost a steep price, especially if they had come from Latin America or Europe or China or Australia, as a great many did. The Americans who migrated westward generally crossed the Rocky Mountains or the Isthmus of Panama to get to gold country. People who came from other countries made great use of boats that docked in San Francisco and other, more southern ports.

The legality of various prospectors' claims to gold was not at all straightforward. When Marshall first found gold, on January 24, the land was still technically owned by Mexico, although that country had surrendered to U.S. forces, ending the Mexican-American War. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which officially ended the war, went into effect on February 2. Even then, California was under the control of the U.S. Military.

American soldiers did not roam the gold fields, however. The areas were largely self-policed, which allowed for all sorts of varied rules of law. As towns sprang up, rural law enforcement made its presence felt.

What this meant for the initial waves of prospectors, however, is that the gold was theirs for the taking, no questions asked, no taxes assessed, no price to be paid other than the hard labor expended to find the gold in the first place. Protecting that find proved problematic for many. The only real solution to the lawlessness that existed in some areas was the drying up of the gold deposits, making it unpalatable for anyone looking for quick and easy wealth.

The California Gold Rush was not kind to Sutter or Marshall, either. Unequipped with his own private security force, Sutter could do little to stem the tide of prospectors who camped on the land on which he had intended to complete his sawmill. He saw his dreams of an agriculture bonanza dry up in the dust left by prospectors' boots and horses' hooves. Marshall had little luck prospecting, either. Both men died poor and forgotten, except for the part that they played in setting off the Gold Rush in the first place.

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The California Gold Rush The discovery of gold in California in the mid-19th Century ushered in one of the largest migrations in American history, as tens of thousands of hopeful, excited, and just plain desperate participated in the California Gold Rush.

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Some of the riders of 1860-61 are better known than others. But it took all the riders to make this rigorous schedule happen. Meet a few of the notable riders:

Johnny Fry

Johnny was born in Kentucky and moved with his family to Missouri when he was 16 years old. Because he was an accomplished horseman, Alexander Majors asked him to ride for the Pony Express. Historians disagree on whether he was the first rider out of St. Joseph. After the Pony Express, Johnny enlisted in the army. He was killed at Baxter Springs where a huge monument salutes those buried there.

William Campbell

Billy came to the United States with his parents as a young boy. After a few years, he and his brother were hired by Russell, Majors and Waddell as bullwackers. Later they were sent west to help build stations for the Pony Express. In 1860 he was placed on a run between Valley Station and Box Elder in what is now Nebraska. After the running of the Pony, he and his brother became freighters. He died in Stockton, California.

Major Howard Egan

Howard emigrated to the United State from Ireland with his parents in the early 1830's. While living in Massachusetts, he was won to the Mormon faith. He was with the Pioneer Party of 1847 that journeyed to the west to establish a home for the Mormons. At the start of the Pony Express, he was appointed Superintendent of the Division from Salt Lake City to Robert's Creek which is in present day Nevada. Major Egan filled in when others couldn't ride. After the Pony Express, he ranched and became involved with the court system in Utah.

Robert Haslam

"Pony Bob" was one of the most daring riders for the Pony Express. He was first hired to help build stations and was then put on a run from Friday's Station to Buckland's Station. During the Pyramid Lake War he made one of the longest and most dangerous rides. After the telegraph line put the Express out of business, he worked for several stage lines. Pony Bob is buried in Chicago.

William (Sam) Hamilton

Sam was hired for Bolivar Robert's division because he knew the territory. He took the first mochila off the boat at Sacramento. When the first west bound mail arrived, he carried it from Placerville to Sacramento where he boarded the boat, horse and all, for San Francisco. Little is known about this noteworthy rider.

Other Riders

The Following is a Compilation of Rider lists, noting the Various Sources that have cited their names.

**Courtesy of NPEA Historian Patrick Hearty.**

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Some of the riders of 1860-61 are better known than others. But it took all the riders to make this rigorous schedule happen. Meet a few of the notable riders: Johnny was born in Kentucky and moved with his family to Missouri when he was 16 years old.

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The California Gold Rush cartoon 1849 (The Wild West)

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Fresberg Cartoon – Learning & History for Students

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Trail of Tears for Kids Documentary: Watch our Cartoon for Kids on the Trail of Tears

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The Trail of Tears was a forced movement of Native Americans in the United States between 1836 and 1839. The United States government forced Native Americans to leave their lands and move outside the United States. The U.S. then took over the Native Americans' land and made it available to mostly white settlers.

Because thousands of Native Americans died during this forced movement, it is called the "Trail of Tears."

In 1828, gold was found near Dahlonega in Georgia. This resulted in a gold rush. At that time, a Native American nation called the Cherokee lived in Georgia. Many Cherokee children went to American schools. The Cherokees had their own newspaper and built three-story houses. Some even owned slaves.

Even though the land belonged to the Cherokee Nation, President Andrew Jackson wanted this land to belong to the United States. The land was worth over $7,000,000 ($172,730,303 in 2023) U.S. dollars. Jackson signed a law that forced the Cherokees to move. This was called the Indian Removal Act. However, at that time, the Cherokees had their own nation and their own government. They did not have to follow laws made by the United States. Therefore, Jackson signed laws that let him take nearly all the Cherokees' rights.

The Cherokee nation did not want to accept those laws or the Indian Removal Act, so the Cherokees' Chief John Ross tried to defend the Cherokee rights through the United States courts. In 1832, the Supreme Court of the United States said that the Cherokee were living in their own country, "in which the laws of Georgia can have no force." The Court said Georgia had no right to make the Cherokee do anything.

Nevertheless, the U.S. government used a treaty, called the Treaty of New Echota, to remove the Cherokee nation by force. The treaty was signed by the leader of a small group of Cherokees with different opinions than the rest of the Nation. Since an official Cherokee leader did not sign the treaty, it was not legal under Cherokee law. About 15,000 Cherokees signed a petition against the treaty. Newspapers and people around the United States (including John Quincy Adams) protested the treaty. The United States Senate approved the treaty by just one vote. President Jackson signed the treaty into law on May 23, 1836. The treaty gave the Cherokees two years to leave their lands. Only about 2,000 left within the two years.

Forced removal

"

"I fought through the War Between the States and have seen many men shot, but the Cherokee Removal was the cruelest work I ever knew."
- A Georgia soldier who participated in the removal

"

The deadline for Cherokees to leave their land voluntarily was on May 23, 1838. President Martin Van Buren sent General Winfield Scott to lead the soldiers who would force the Cherokee to leave.

On May 26th, the official removal began. 7,000 soldiers forced about 15,000 Cherokees and 2,000 of their slaves to leave their land. All Cherokees had to leave their homes right away. Within three weeks, the Cherokees were all forced into concentration camps. They were forced to stay in these camps for the summer of 1838. 353 Cherokee died from dysentery and other diseases.

Finally, Chief Ross got General Scott to agree to a deal. Chief Ross promised that he and other Cherokee leaders would bring the Cherokee people to their new lands on their own. General Scott agreed and even got the U.S. Army to pay the costs of the trip.

The Cherokee traveled in groups of 1000 to 3000 people on three main routes. Different groups started in Chattanooga, Tennessee; Guntersville, Alabama; and Charleston, Tennessee. Most Cherokees had to walk; others, if they were wealthy men, could use wagons. The United States government also gave the Cherokee about 660 wagons.

It is said that many Cherokees sang a Cherokee version of the song Amazing Grace, which became a kind of anthem for the Cherokee nation.

The trip was about 1,200 miles long. During the trip, the Cherokee had to deal with winter weather, blizzards, and diseases. Not everybody agrees on how many people died on the trip. Some say 2,000 and others say 6,000, but most say about 4,000 people died. Finally, the Cherokee who were still alive arrived in what is now Oklahoma.

The Cherokee took different routes. Some were by land and others by water. Some boats were destroyed, which was a danger on water routes. On the ground, people had to walk through mud and cold weather, and it was harder walking on land.

Water route

This route was taken by about 2,800 Cherokees split into three groups. All groups started at Ross's Landing at the Tennessee River. They used boats to travel to the Ohio River, which took them south to the Mississippi River. They took the Arkansas River westward from the Mississippi. They arrived near Fort Coffee, Oklahoma. The first group left on June 6 and reached the territory after 13 days. The second and third groups had a lot of problems with diseases, so their trip took longer.

Land routes

The people who did not travel by water took land routes. Leaders chosen by John Ross guided groups of 700-1,600 people, usually on northern routes. The routes led through central Tennessee, southwestern Kentucky, and southern Illinois. The groups crossed the Mississippi north of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, then traveled through southern Missouri and west of Arkansas. The people who signed the Treaty of New Enchota were willing to trade their homeland for $5 million and land in Oklahoma. United States soldiers led them and usually took a southern route. All land routes usually ended near Westville, Oklahoma. These routes cover more than 2,200 miles in 9 states. Many people died on the journey because of diseases, lack of water, and bad road conditions.

Interesting facts about the Trail of Tears

The five tribes who were mainly affected by the Indian Removal Act were fairly civilized. They had tried to adopt some of the American culture and were friendly with the colonists.

Even though they were given money for food, many of the Cherokee died of starvation because dishonest merchants sold them bad food at high prices.

The Trail of Tears was not the end of the mistreatment of Native Americans. Much of their in Oklahoma was soon taken from them as well.

The Cherokee who survived the Trail of Tears established a new nation and government in Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

John Ross survived the Trail of Tears and was elected Principal Chief of the new Cherokee Nation in 1839.

Some of the Cherokee men who survived the Trail of Tears killed John Ridge, a Cherokee leader who agreed to the Treaty of New Enchota.

The U.S. government did not pay the Cherokee the $5 million they were owed from the Treaty of New Enchota until the Cherokee filed petitions.

The Seminole tribe, one of the tribes that was forced to move, resisted for seven years.

As a result of the Indian Removal Act, 25 million acres of land was left for settlers and colonists in the southeast United States.

Related pages

Images for kids

A Trail of Tears map of Southern Illinois from the USDA - U.S. Forest Service

In Spanish: Sendero de lágrimas para niños

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Kids learn about the Trail of Tears including when it took place, relocation of Native American tribes, the forced march of the Cherokee, the aftermath, and interesting facts.

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Transcontinental Railroad ‑ Construction, Competition & Impact

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In 1862, the Central Pacific and the Union Pacific Railroad Companies began building a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from east to west. Over the next seven years, the two companies raced toward each other from Sacramento, California on the one side to Omaha, Nebraska on the other, struggling against great risks before they met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869.

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By Stuart Thornton

Friday, January 21, 2011

On April 3, 1860, a rider named Johnny Fry departed on horseback with a bag of mail from St. Joseph, Missouri. He headed west on the first leg of a 2,000-mile route across the continent. The mail arrived in California in nine days and 23 hours. This was the first ride of the Pony Express.

The current president of the National Pony Express Association, Les Bennington, compares the advent of the legendary Pony Express to a more recent advance in communication. "The Pony Express was the e-mail of 1860 and 1861, because it would make the trip in the summer months in 10 days," he says.

Before 1860, mail from the eastern United States sent to the west coast traveled by stagecoach on the Butterfield Overland Mail Trail, a 4526-kilometer (2,812-mile) route through the present-day states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The Butterfield Overland Mail Trail ended in San Francisco. From Missouri, the trail swung south to avoid regions of the west that were frequently covered in snow during the winter months. Delivery took around three weeks.

Mail was also carried by ship down the eastern seaboard, over the Isthmus of Panama-a narrow strip of land that links North and South America-by train, and up the west coast of Central America, Mexico, and California by boat. That route took an even longer time.

"That would take probably two to three months, so the mail was old-and the news was old-by the time it got there," Bennington says.

Riding the Pony Express

Studded with 153 stations, the Pony Express trail utilized 80 riders and between 400 to 500 horses to carry mail from the settled Midwest to the new state of California, which had experienced a surge in population after the 1849 Gold Rush.

In fact, the western end of the Pony Express was the B.F. Hastings Building in Sacramento, near where gold was found years earlier. In the large building, the Pony Express office shared space with the California Supreme Court and Theodore Judah, the engineer who is largely responsible for the planning of the first transcontinental railroad.

Riders for the Pony Express carried the mail in saddlebags along the trail for about 120 to 160 kilometers (75 to 100 miles) before transferring the mail to another rider at a home station. Home stations could vary from a nice shelter, like a hotel, to a more primitive rest stop such as a dugout near a creek. The more elite home stations were usually located along the eastern route, which had stable urban areas. The west was still being settled with permanent residents, and western home stations were often spartan.

Along their section of trail, riders would stop every 16 to 24 kilometers (10 to 15 miles) to hop onto a fresh horse at the four to six relay stations on their leg.

Jackie Lewin, the executive director of the St. Joseph Museums and the co-author of On the Winds of Destiny: A Biographical Look at Pony Express Riders, says that most of the riders were small, lightweight men around 20 years old. The most popular rider associated with the mail company is William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who later became known for his Wild West stage show. There are some historians who dispute Cody's claim that he was employed for the Pony Express, however.

Pony Express riders rode over rugged terrain that included passes high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, but Lewin believes the most difficult part of the trail was its desert regions.

"I would say the hardest section would be the Utah Territory, which would be today's [states of] Utah and Nevada, because it was pretty isolated and has extreme temperatures," she says. "That's the area where the Paiute Indians attacked the line."

Even though riders from the Pony Express had to deal with everything from tornadoes to bison stampedes, the greatest difficulty for the mail carriers occurred in May of 1860 with the eruption of the Pyramid Lake War. A flood of white settlers seeking silver in Nevada brought the newcomers into conflict with the region's native inhabitants, the Paiute Indians. The Paiutes, who realized that the settlers would permanently disrupt their way of life, began attacking Pony Express stations in the area. The Pyramid Lake War caused the Pony Express to suspend operations from Carson City, Nevada, to Salt Lake City, Utah, for a month.

"The company had to rebuild stations and restock them," Lewin says. "It cost about $75,000. It really did hurt the company."

Bennington, president of the National Pony Express Association, says that the station keepers of the Pony Express, not its riders, were most susceptible to attacks by the Paiute. "We had quite a few station keepers killed," he says. "We know one rider was killed by Indians. Overall, we didn't lose many riders that were actually carrying the mail. There were some other ones that were killed just defending the stations."

Yet it wasn't conflict with the Native Americans that caused the demise of the Pony Express just 18 months after it first began delivering mail. Rather, it was a technological development: the construction of telegraph lines that ended up sewing the west to the rest of the nation. This development had actually been expected by the owners of the Pony Express, who always viewed the service as a temporary one.

Legacy of the Pony Express

Even though the Pony Express had a relatively short run, it has secured a prominent position in the history of the American West. Bennington, whose organization has conducted a re-ride over the Pony Express Trail every year since 1980, is still in awe of the Pony Express riders 150 years after Fry's first ride.

"It was no small undertaking when you start to look back and see what these people had," he says. "I mean there's no place colder than on the back of a horse when it's brutally cold. You gotta keep in mind they didn't have down-filled jackets or hats made for snowy conditions."

To celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Pony Express, the city of St. Joseph, Missouri, hosted a Buffalo Bill Look-a-Like Contest, some Pony Express re-enactments, and a parade with the Budweiser Clydesdales. In addition, the National Pony Express Association embarked on a special 150th anniversary ( sesquicentennial) re-ride of the trail.

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By Stuart Thornton Friday, January 21, 2011 On April 3, 1860, a rider named Johnny Fry departed on horseback with a bag of mail from St. Joseph, Missouri. He headed west on the first leg of a 2,000-mile route across the continent. The mail arrived in California in nine days and 23 hours.

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In the Wake of Lewis & Clark

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Beginning as a trickle in the high alpine meadows of western Canada, the Columbia River flows through great, forested mountains and down desert canyons. Joined by the Snake River, it rolls with increasing force through fertile farmlands, past snow-covered volcanoes, and finally knifes through a mountain range to complete a 1,200-mile journey to the wide sea. This is the grand gateway to the West, pioneered by Lewis and Clark, roamed by fur traders, and traversed by courageous settlers as they forged their way over the Oregon Trail. Our comfortable, small ships, designed for exploring these historic waterways. Their size and maneuverability enable you to travel from the mouth of the Columbia all the way inland to Idaho, more than 450 miles upstream - a voyage impossible for a big ship. Video is good for elementary and middle school students.

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WatchKnowLearn - Free K-12 educational videos

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Louisiana Purchase in a Nutshell

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Louisiana Purchase, 1803 (Primary Documents of American History: The American Revolution and the New Nation, 1775-1815) | Web Guides, Library of Congress

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A Web guide to resources at the Library of Congress, as well as selected external Web sites, on the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, considered to be the greatest real estate deal in history. The United States purchased the Louisiana Territory from France at a price of $15 million, or approximately four cents an acre.

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Table of Contents

1. France in the New World

2. Louisiana Territory Changes Hands

3. Louisiana Purchase Negotiations

4. Legacy of the Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 brought into the United States about 828,000 square miles of territory from France, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. What was known at the time as the Louisiana Territory stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. Part or all of 15 states were eventually created from the land deal, which is considered one of the most important achievements of Thomas Jefferson's presidency.

France in the New World

Beginning in the 17th century, France explored the Mississippi River valley and established scattered settlements in the region.

By the middle of the 18th century, France controlled more of the present-day United States than any other European power: from New Orleans northeast to the Great Lakes and northwest to modern-day Montana.

In 1762, during the French and Indian War, France ceded French Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to Spain and in 1763 transferred nearly all of its remaining North American holdings to Great Britain. Spain, no longer a dominant European power, did little to develop Louisiana during the next three decades.

Louisiana Territory Changes Hands

In 1796, Spain allied itself with France, leading Britain to use its powerful navy to cut off Spain from America. And in 1801, Spain signed a secret treaty with France to return the Louisiana Territory to France.

Reports of the retrocession caused considerable unease in the United States. Since the late 1780s, Americans had been moving westward into the Ohio River and Tennessee River valleys, and these settlers were highly dependent on free access to the Mississippi River and the strategic port of New Orleans.

U.S. officials feared that France, resurgent under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, would soon seek to dominate the Mississippi River and access to the Gulf of Mexico. In a letter to U.S. minister to France Robert Livingston, President Thomas Jefferson stated, "The day that France takes possession of New Orleans...we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation."

Livingston was ordered to negotiate with French Finance Minister Barbé-Marbois for the purchase of New Orleans.

Louisiana Purchase Negotiations

France was slow in taking control of Louisiana, but in 1802 Spanish authorities, apparently acting under French orders, revoked a U.S.-Spanish treaty that granted Americans the right to store goods in New Orleans.

In response, Jefferson sent future U.S. president James Monroe to Paris to aid Livingston in the New Orleans purchase talks. In mid-April 1803, shortly before Monroe's arrival, the French asked a surprised Livingston if the United States was interested in purchasing all of Louisiana Territory.

It's believed that the failure of France to put down a slave revolution in Haiti, the impending war with Great Britain and probable British naval blockade of France - combined with French economic difficulties - may have prompted Napoleon to offer Louisiana for sale to the United States.

Negotiations moved swiftly, and at the end of April the U.S. envoys agreed to pay $11,250,000 and assume claims of American citizens against France in the amount of $3,750,000. In exchange, the United States acquired the vast domain of Louisiana Territory, some 828,000 square miles of land.

The treaty was dated April 30 and signed on May 2. In October, the U.S. Senate ratified the purchase, and in December 1803 France transferred authority over the region to the United States.

Legacy of the Louisiana Purchase

The acquisition of the Louisiana Territory for the bargain price of less than three cents an acre was among Jefferson's most notable achievements as president. American expansion westward into the new lands began immediately, and in 1804 a territorial government was established.

Jefferson soon commissioned the Lewis and Clark Expedition, led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, to explore the territory acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.

On April 30, 1812, exactly nine years after the Louisiana Purchase agreement was made, the first state to be carved from the territory - Louisiana - was admitted into the Union as the 18th U.S. state.
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Louisiana Purchase - Definition, Facts & Importance | HISTORY

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The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 introduced about 828,000,000 square miles of territory from France into the United States, thereby doubling the size of the young republic. Explore the facts about this important acquisition and its lasting legacy on Thomas Jefferson's presidency.

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On a gloomy December afternoon in 1803, a boat crept along the banks of the Mississippi River and landed at the mouth of the Wood River in what is now the state of Illinois. A group of men climbed out and began to set up camp under a dark canopy of oak trees. Suddenly a violent storm moved in, pelting the area with snow and hail.

The men didn't turn back though. Instead, they hunkered down and spent the next five months here preparing for the trip they were about to embark on,in which poor weather would be one of the many dangers they'd face.

Among these men were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, co-leaders of an expedition tasked with exploring land that the United States had recently acquired. Their trip would turn into an epic 8,000-mile-long trek-and the first big step in the United States' westward expansion.

LET'S MAKE A DEAL

When Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States in 1801, the country basically stopped at the Mississippi River. France controlled much of the land to the west of this waterway.

President Jefferson wanted to acquire the Port of New Orleans, in what is now the state of Louisiana, from the French. Its prime location made it a key spot for trade. In 1803, Jefferson made what's known as one of the greatest real estate deals in history: the Louisiana Purchase.

After negotiations, France agreed to sell the entire city of New Orleans, which included the port, to the United States for $10 million; they threw in the rest of the territory they owned for an additional $5 million. The agreement-which gave the United States approximately 828,000 square miles of land-almost doubled the size of the nearly 30-year-old nation.

The United States only paid about three cents an acre for the land, which stretched from the Mississippi River in the east to the Rocky Mountains in the west and from the Gulf of Mexico in the south to the Canadian border in the north. Spain still owned much of the southwestern part of what's now the United States, stretching from the area that would become Texas to present-day California.

Purchasing this enormous amount of land was one thing, but exploring it was another. Jefferson wanted to plan an expedition to investigate the territory. He called the proposed mission the Voyage of Discovery and began assembling a team of explorers called the Corps (KOR) of Discovery. The president chose Captain Meriwether Lewis and Captain William Clark to lead the expedition. Lewis, President Jefferson's personal secretary, was an officer in the United States Army and spoke several Native American languages. Lewis recommended Clark-a retired officer who had served alongside him in the Army-as the expedition's co-leader.

WAY OUT WEST

In the spring of 1804, Lewis, Clark, and dozens of other men left St. Louis, Missouri, by boat. They traveled westward through what is now Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska, and South Dakota.

In November they reached Knife River Village in present-day North Dakota. There they met a young Shoshone Native American woman called Sacagawea (Sa-kuh-juh-WEE-uh) and her fur-trader husband, Toussaint Charbonneau (Too-SAHNT SHAR-bon-oh). The couple joined the expedition as interpreters, translating the language of the local tribes for Lewis and Clark's men.

Sacagawea didn't just serve as an interpreter during the trip, however. She helped Lewis and Clark's men obtain essential supplies and horses, identified edible plants and herbs, and prevented hostile relations with other tribes simply by being with the group-all while carrying her newborn baby on her back.

After meeting Sacagawea and her husband, the Corps traveled west from North Dakota, 15 to 20 miles a day on foot and by boat, toward the mountains. Day after day, the exhausted, freezing team braved rough rivers and perilous peaks, getting by on very little food. They wouldn't see the Pacific Ocean until November 1805-over a year after they first left Missouri.

COMING HOME

After a long winter waiting out the bad weather, the Corps was able to start making their way back east in March 1806. After returning Sacagawea and her husband to North Dakota, the remainder of the Corps arrived back in Missouri in late September, more than two years after they started their expedition.

Lewis and Clark's team mapped uncharted land, rivers, and mountains. They brought back journals filled with details about Native American tribes and scientific notes about plants and animals they'd never seen before. They also brought back stories-tales that made other Americans dream about heading west.

Many Americans did more than dream. The great westward expansion was about to begin.

Text adapted from The Journals of Lewis and Clark; The Mississippi and the Making of a Nation: From the Louisiana Purchase to Today; and Sacagawea

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How Lewis and Clark-along with a Native American guide, Sacagawea-explored the newly expanded United States

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Before the resort town of Cannon Beach, Oregon, a Tillamook tribal village-NeCus'-sat along the tiny brackish bay where Ecola Creek crosses the sandy beach. The Lewis and Clark Expedition journals provide a tantalizing but fragmentary glimpse of this community.

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Latest Additions The Trail Eastern Beginnings → Down the Ohio → Up the Mississippi → Winter at St. Louis → Starting Up the Missouri → Past the Omahas → Among the Yanktons → Crossing the Lakotas → Winter at Fort Mandan → Along the Northern Reach → Portaging the Falls → Gates of the Rockies [...]

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Have you ever wondered what life was really like for pioneers living in the American West during the late 19th century? How did they fare without the modern conveniences we take for granted? Could a modern-day family handle a pioneer family's lifestyle? Join us as we try to answer some of these questions.

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Have you ever wondered what life was really like for pioneers living in the American West during the late 19th century? How did they fare without the modern conveniences we take for granted? Could a modern-day family handle a pioneer family's lifestyle? Join us as we try to answer some of these questions.

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Major “Strikes” in the California Gold Rush | American Experience | PBS

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An astounding amount of gold was pulled from the ground during the California gold rush.

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Building the Erie Canal

Opened in 1825, the Erie Canal was one of the most extraordinary engineering feats of the 19th century, connecting eastern ports and manufacturing with the rest of the country.

© 2022, A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Opened in 1825, the Erie Canal was one of the most extraordinary engineering feats of the 19th century, connecting eastern ports and manufacturing with the rest of the country. © 2022, A&E Television Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

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Explore National Geographic. A world leader in geography, cartography and exploration.

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Kids learn the timeline of Westward Expansion of the United States. Pioneers and settlers moved west of the Mississippi all the way to California.

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First Transcontinental Railroad
History >>Westward Expansion

The First Transcontinental Railroad stretched from the East Coast of the United States to the West Coast. No longer would people travel in long wagon trains that took months to reachCalifornia. They could now travel faster, safer, and cheaper by train. In addition to people, things like mail, supplies, and trade goods could now be shipped across the country in just a few days. The railroad was built between 1863 and 1869.

Background

The first talk of a transcontinental railroad started around 1830. One of the first promoters of the railroad was a merchant named Asa Whitney. Asa tried hard for many years to get Congress to pass an act to build the railroad, but failed. However, in the 1860s Theodore Judah began to lobby for a railroad. He surveyed the Sierra Nevada Mountains and found a pass where the railroad could be built.

The Route

There were two main routes along which people wanted the first railroad to be built.

One route was called the "central route". It followed much the same route as the Oregon Trail. It would begin in Omaha, Nebraska and end up in Sacramento, California.

The other route was the "southern route". This route would stretch across Texas, New Mexico, and end up in Los Angeles, California.

The central route was eventually chosen by Congress.

Route of the First Transcontinental Railroad by Unknown

Pacific Railroad Act

In 1862President Abraham Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act into law. The act said that there were two main railroad lines. The Central Pacific Railroad would come from California and the Union Pacific Railroad would come from the Midwest. The two railroads would meet somewhere in the middle.

The act gave the railroad companies land where they could build the railroad. It also paid them for each mile that they built. They were paid more money for miles of track built in themountains versus miles of track built on the flat plains.

Building the Railroad

Across the Continent
by Joseph Becker

Building the railroad was tough, hard work. Weather conditions were especially tough in the mountains during the winter. A lot of times the only way to travel over the mountains was to go through the mountains by blasting a tunnel. The Central Pacific Railroad had to blast a number of tunnels through the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The longest tunnel built was 1659 feet long. It took a long time to build the tunnels. They were able to blast around one foot per day on average.

While the Central Pacific Railroad had to deal with mountains and snow, the Union Pacific Railroad was challenged byNative Americans raids. As the Native Americans came to realize the threat to their way of life that the "Iron Horse" was going to bring, they began to raid the railroad work sites. Also, a lot of the land that was "granted" to the railroad by the government was actually Native American land.

The Workers

The majority of the workers on the Union Pacific Railroad were Irish laborers, many who had served in both the Union and the Confederate armies. In Utah, a lot of the track was built by Mormon workers. Most of the Central Pacific Railroad was built by Chinese immigrants.

The Golden Spike

The two railroads finally met at Promontory Summit, Utah on May 10, 1869. Leland Stanford, governor of California and president of the Central Pacific Railroad, drove in the last spike. This final spike was called the "Golden Spike" or "The Final Spike". You can see it today at Stanford University in California.

Driving the Golden Spike on 10th May, 1869
by American School

Interesting Facts about the First Transcontinental Railroad

The Pony Express traveled a similar route to the central route and helped to prove that the route was passable in winter.

The transcontinental railroad was also called the Pacific Railroad and the Overland Route.

The total length of the First Transcontinental Railroad was 1,776 miles.

The Central Pacific Railroad was controlled by four men called the "Big Four". They were Leland Stanford, Collis P. Huntington, Mark Hopkins, and Charles Crocker.

It was later, in November of 1869, when the Central Pacific connected San Francisco to Sacramento.

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Works Cited

History >>Westward Expansion

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Kids learn about the First Transcontinental Railroad. Fun facts about the route, the Union Pacific, and the Pacific Railroad Act.

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Kids learn the timeline of Westward Expansion of the United States. Pioneers and settlers moved west of the Mississippi all the way to California.

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Learn about the Oregon Trail from the Old West. A roadway used by pioneers in covered wagons to travel west.

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Kids learna about the daily life on the frontier of the Old West. How pioneers and settlers lived.

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https://www.ducksters.com/history/westward_expansion/louisiana_purchase.php

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Kids learn about the biography and life of explorer and guide Sacagawea. Native American woman who helped Lewis and Clark.

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Kids learn about the biography and life of explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. They explored the wild west of America.

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Kids learn the timeline of Westward Expansion of the United States. Pioneers and settlers moved west of the Mississippi all the way to California.

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Kids learn about the Pony Express from the Old West. Riders would swap horses at stations to deliver the mail faster to and from California.

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History: Westward Expansion and the Old West for Kids

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Kids learn about the history of the Westward Expansion and the Old West of the United States as pioneers settled the west as the country expanded. Educational articles for teachers, students, and schools including daily life on the frontier, gold rush, Pony Express, timeline, glossary, and people.

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Newsela | An Overview of U.S. Westward Expansion

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Millions of Americans and new immigrants heeded the 19th century call to "Go West!"