Fun
Facts...
Weird ways west
The
$100 drink of water
Traffic
on the Trail
To
California via Antarctica
The
Stinky Trail
Weird
ways west
 An California-bound airline in 1849!? Don't laugh; it almost happened. Rufus
Porter, founder of Scientific American, planned to fly 49ers west
on propeller-driven balloons powered by steam engines. He went
to far as to advertise the expedition, and 200 brave souls signed
up for the trip. But the "airline" never got off the
ground.
Then there
was the "wind wagon," sort of a cross between a sailboat
and a wagon. It seemed like a good idea on paper; after all, it
can be very windy in the West. A prototype was built and for a
brief moment it barreled across the plains at the advertised 15
miles-per-hour. Then it went out of control and crashed. The inventor--Wind-wagon
Thomas--kept trying for years, but never succeeded.
Others took
a more low-tech approach, making the trip with only a simple wheelbarrow.
It's hard to imagine pushing a fully-loaded wheelbarrow for 2,000
miles, but several dozen attempted the trip. For a time, they
could outpace everything on the Trail, but human endurance has
its limits. No one is quite sure if any of them made it all the
way with their wheelbarrows.
Why all the
weird contraptions? Everyone was in a big hurry to get west--to
strike it rich.
The
$100 drink of water
Would you
spend $100 for a glass of water? Some 49ers on the California
Trail did.
Because of
poor planning, many western-bound 49ers were unprepared for the
hot, dry deserts of Nevada. A few sharp businessmen in California
knew this and took advantage of the situation. They traveled eastward
with barrels of water. Extremely thirsty, many 49ers paid $1,
$5, even $100 for a glass of precious water.
But water
was not the only expensive item on the Oregon-California Trail.
For example, at the start of the journey, flour could be purchased
for $4.00 a barrel, but further along the price rose to a sky-high
$1.00 per pint. Other staples could also be quite expensive:
·Sugar
$1.50 per pint
·Coffee
$1.00 per pint
·Liquor
$4.00 per pint
Surprisingly,
there were other staples that were amazingly cheap. For example,
at Ft. Laramie, bacon could be had for a penny per pound. Those
who had excess bacon often considered it worthless and dumped
it by the side of the road. One emigrant reported seeing ten tons
on one pile.
Why the wide
disparity in prices? The basic laws of supply and demand were
at work. Most wagon trains took too much bacon and so it had little
trading value. Water, on the other hand was in short supply and
thus commanded a high price.
Traffic
on the Trail
Bumper-to-bumper
highway congestion isn't just a modern phenomena. Rush hour traffic
on the Oregon-California trail was just as bad--probably worse.
The image
of a lone wagon on the endless prairie is largely myth; it's more
accurate to imagine a moving city. Many reported seeing wagons
all the way to the horizon day after day.
And just
like today's highways, there was quite a bit of jockeying for
position. The goal was to get in front of the pack because anyone
who was behind had to eat the billowing dust kicked up by the
wagons ahead. Competition was fierce; those in the back often
had to put on goggles just to see.
The crowded
conditions got even worse in the evening when the wagons came
together to camp. Many 49ers discovered that previous wagon trains
had overgrazed the prairie, and so there was no remaining grass
for the oxen and mules to graze. So it was not uncommon for 49ers
to venture miles off the trail in the evening in search of grass
for their animals.
A more serious
consequence of all this crowding was poor sanitation. Each new
wagon train dug their latrines near the previous group's--and
there was often leakage into the water supply. The result was
illness and death.
To
California via Antarctica
Not every
49er used the Oregon -California Trail. There were other routes
to gold country--one came perilously close to Antarctica!
Those who
did not want to endure a four month walk across the west, traveled
to California by ship. Trouble was, there was no direct water
route to the west coast. So a ship leaving New York had to travel
all the way to the tip of South America--skirting the edge of
the the Antarctic continent--before heading north to California.
It was a difficult trip that sometimes took a complete year.
So it was
inevitable that several shortcuts were developed for the gold-crazed
49ers who were in a big hurry to get west. The most popular cutoff
involved taking a ship to the Isthmus of Panama, then trekking
overland to the Pacific side (remember, there was no Panama Canal
then) where another ship would pick them up--hopefully.
When the
49ers got to the Pacific side, they waited and waited for weeks,
or even months. When a ship finally did arrive, passage might
cost $500 or $1000, and sometimes there was no space at any price.
Even worse,
many of the Pacific-side ships were unseaworthy and sank en route.
In the end, many regretted not taking the overland route.
The
Stinky Trail west
Imagine the
sunburn you'd get from being outside from sunup to sundown every
day for six months. No sunblock. No lotion. That was reality for
the California-bound 49ers--most wound up with leathery, sunbaked
skin. But that was just the beginning.
Imagine sweating
profusely in 90 degree heat day after day--but never taking a
bath or shower. That too was typical of life on the trail.
And remember,
this was before the days of t-shirts and shorts. Women wore long
dresses for the most part, and men wore long pants. And there
wasn't even much changing of clothes. They wore the same clothes
day after day.
Could it
get any worse? Yes. They often had no choice but to drink rancid
water, which had the inevitable result: diarrhea. For many, it
was a chronic condition.
All these
factors combined to create some rather deplorable hygienic conditions.
Even the native tribes were repulsed by the smell. The Native
Americans, who bathed regularly, thought the emigrants were uncivilized
because of their poor hygiene.
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