How many bodies are along the Oregon Trail?

The Oregon Trail is this nation's longest graveyard. Over a 25 year span, up to 65,000 deaths occurred along the western overland emigrant trails. If evenly spaced along the length of the Oregon Trail, there would be a grave every 50 yards from Missouri to Oregon City.



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Some travelers continued to take wagons over the old trail as late as the 1920s. Why? Usually because they didn't have the money to buy train tickets to take their families west, or they had livestock that needed herding along, but sometimes just because they loved the old-timey adventure of it.

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Surprisingly, considering how many wagons went West, very few faced attacks by the Indians. A well-led and disciplined train was more likely to get through without problems. The opposite was often true for small trains where discipline was lacking.

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Perhaps some 300,000 to 400,000 people used it during its heyday from the mid-1840s to the late 1860s, and possibly a half million traversed it overall, covering an average of 15 to 20 miles (24 to 32 km) per day; most completed their journeys in four to five months.

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Use of the trail declined after the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer.

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