The Oregon Trail: An American Saga

by David Dary

In today's world of jet airplanes and smooth highways, it is nearly impossible to imagine the hardships faced by the thousands of people who headed west along the great Oregon Trail. In this detailed and engaging account, historian David Dary recounts the full saga of the trail's history, from its creation in the early 1800's, to its peak during the '49 Gold Rush, its rapid decline following the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and finally, its revival as a modern day historical treasure.

Dary introduces us to the trailblazers, fur-traders, and missionaries, who made the first journeys to Oregon County, an internationally disputed territory comprising present-day Washington, Oregon, and California. We learn of the road's steadily increasing popularity, as economic problems or the promise of adventure and wealth lead thousands of homesteaders, gold-rushers, and entrepreneurs to pile their hopes and dreams into wagons and head west. Using journals and letters, as well as company and expedition reports, public records and newspaper stories, Dary takes us inside the day to day experiences of the travelers, as they risked ruin at every step from disease, weather, and human deceit. Trail.

Through Dary's expert and comprehensive history, we learn how the events of the day turned a small trickle of pioneering men and women into the greatest mass migration in American history.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Westerns, Travel

414 pages, Paperback

First published November 9, 2004

Reviews

[Carolina · Rating 5 out of 5]

For anyone interested in the American westward expansion, this book is a must-read. Covering everything from the earliest fur traders all the way through to modern times, David Dary does a great job describing all the many people who braved the unknown and eventually expanded the U.S. to the Pacific coast.

While I know some reviewers felt that Dary used too many specific stories in this book, I believe that is what gives this story the most depth. By borrowing from countless pioneer journals, the author brings us to understand not just factually what traveling on the Oregon trail was like, but also how the pioneers experienced it emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I felt that I got a great survey of the many different characters on the Trail, including explorers, fur traders, soldiers, gold seekers, Mormons, Indians, and those just looking for a new life.

It's not often that a historical book can be a page-turner, but for me, this book was exactly that.

[Florence Buchholz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Back in the early 19th century the Oregon territory consisted of two fur-trading posts; one British and one American; both battling for dominance. By midcentury a few brave souls ventured across the wilderness of North America to populate the new territory and eventually claim it for the United States. It was a nightmarish trip and many did not survive. We have all heard of the Donner Party who met tragedy. They never made it over the Sierra Nevada after experiencing a heavy snowstorm in October. There are many other stories of hardship left for posterity in the diaries of emigrants. They embarked from Missouri, piling all of their belongings into a canvas covered wagon drawn by mules or oxen. Men, women, children and animals drowned while crossing rivers. Others were run over by heavily laden wagons. As the trail became more heavily traveled in the years before the civil war, a deadly outbreak of cholera took scores of lives. At first, settlers and Indians coexisted. As more white people crossed Indian land and killed buffalo, the tribes became alarmed and felt threatened. There were massacres on both sides, but only one side had an army dedicated to removing the threat of angry natives. Of course the story ends in 1869 with the advent of the railroad. Suddenly, what had been a months long dangerous trip across the wilderness became a relatively comfortable journey of a few days on the iron horse. The Oregon trail became a relic of history. Unfortunately, so did many of our native people and most of the buffalo they depended on for life.

[Anson Cassel Mills · Rating 3 out of 5]

Newer is not necessarily better. Though the novice can learn much from Dary’s book, John D. Unruh, The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 (1979) remains the definitive work on the subject. What really surprised me about The Oregon Trail is that while David Dary (1934-2018) had a reputation as a popularizer, a western storyteller, his book is not terribly well written. Repeatedly my eyes were snagged by sentences that might have been tweaked into better English. By contrast, John D. Unruh (1937-1976), who died of a brain tumor as a young man, wrote The Plains Across with exceptional sensitivity, though it was his first and only book and a revision of his doctoral dissertation. Dary will do as a comparatively brief introduction to the subject; in all other aspects, Unruh is his superior, both the better scholar and the better writer. In fact, I can imagine Dary’s book never having been written if Unruh had lived to expand on The Plains Across and had (perhaps repeatedly) summarized his formidable scholarship for popular audiences.

[David R. · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lushly researched and documented account of the Oregon Trail, or more precisely exploration and emigration to the Oregon Country in the first half of the 19th Century. Dary is a dry read but has the right idea: I appreciated attention to first person accounts of individual emigrants. The attentive reader has enough here, especially armed with appendix matter, to travel the route today. It's solid work and recommended reading.

[Jackie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Academic tone and made an exciting and interesting story boring.

[Bryan Atkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would recommend this book for its information and organization. It covers the greatest migration in human history, the people who made the trek, why, and how. It covers the dangers they faced and the rewards they sought. The author also delves into the Mormons traveling to Salt Lake City and those seeking gold and silver in California, Nevada, Colorado, and Alaska. The book is a bit longer than I cared for, which is what I would expect of a well researched history book. The writing style didn't captivate me, but it wasn't way too dry.

My main qualm with book is how the author represents Native Americans. There were passages that made me wonder if he buys into the racist perception of indigenous people that many white Americans had at the time of the Oregon Trail. I have to think he doesn't, which just means his writing is lazy and also that he doesn't care enough to be careful with his words.

Prepare to read the phrase, "It is not known exactly how many..." around 100 times, like "it is not known exactly how many sheep arrived in The Dalles in 1847." I never wanted to know that! I forgive the author for not having that information.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wanted to learn more about the history of Oregon and this seemed a good beginning. Not so. While I learned much about the early settlers to this area, Dary actually provides a detailed and well-documented history of emigration from the east into the new lands on the Pacific Ocean, actually beginning with early explorations by sea.

The history of The Trail to Oregon Territory, as it was eventually named, includes fur trappers, mountain men, and the establishment of fur trading companies, the struggle among the British, Mexicans, Russians, and French Canadians over land stretching from the northern border of Mexican California to Alaska.

It's interesting to note that the U.S. President in 1941 wanted the Oregon Territory to include all of this area, and back to the central plains. Quite a fascinating story overall.

[Leona Atkinson]

This book was required reading for a college class I just took on the History of the Oregon Trail. I enjoyed the book and the class very much and really did learn a lot from both.

This book by David Dary is easy to read and filled with many facts, names and places regarding the early years of America when the West was yet unsettled and was being explored by Lewis and Clark and fur trade was on the rise. It goes into the discovery of the Columbia River and then the discovery of the Oregon Trail and all those who traveled it from 1840 to 1860. It also has many pictures.

It describes the many trails and tragedies on the Trail of the emigrants and also the Native Americans.

It is an amazing story and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested in American History most especially Oregon History.

[Stephanie Salyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good readable book about the history of the beginning, mid, and after the Oregon trail. The last chapter war very interesting, recording how a man worked tirelessly to preserve the trail, going over one of the original paths in a handmade wagon and team something like 50 yrs after he went the first time with his family. He even got the states and federal government over time to set up monuments over the trail so we have things like this book today. Totally made me want to go on a trip and see all the places myself.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent overview of the history of The Oregon Trail, with plenty of details regarding other associated trails and cutoffs. I particularly enjoyed the inclusion of quotes and lengthy passages from pioneer diaries, journals and books, which brought home the reality of the long journey's many difficulties and dangers.

[Debra Kornfield · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Dary's book may be a classic on the Oregon Trail. His winsome writing style and detailed knowledge about current events of the time as well as stories of emigrants drawn from hundreds of diaries and newspaper stories kept me turning the pages. I've read many books about the Oregon Trail. If you were to ask me for a recommendation of just one, it would be this one.

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pleasurable read, enticing and easy enough to keep going, and with sufficient depth on most topics. I had recently done a bit of research on the Oregon aspect of the Oregon Trail so I most appreciated the focus offered to the other components from the other states. Other than covering the obvious, the book also spent time on some other facets of the Oregon Trail experience. I enjoyed simply learning about oxen as the preferred wagon puller as opposed to mules and horses. And the final chapter delightfully chronicled the efforts of Ezra Meeker a couple generations later to draw national attention to the significance of the transportation network. I don't think it argued well enough the element of the "American saga" that the subtitle portends, as I was left wondering about some wider implications of the phenomenon. But maybe that is my next book to find out there on the topic.

[Rosemary Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book but dry reading in part because there weren't many people you could follow for long; it has the feel of a journal that quotes a fair number of statistics and who died along the way at times.

[Kirsten · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating history which I enjoyed learning about, though the writing style was a bit dry, and it tended to get a bit bogged down by details.

[Joyce Reynolds-Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of the Oregon Trail history and development. I had a few niggles with some smaller facts that I knew about, but otherwise, a very broad and useful book that would not bog down the novice to Oregon Trail history in details. It also managed the timeline of the trail heyday without whipsawing the reader too badly. Excellent description of John McLoughlin's establishment at Fort Vancouver, and I hadn't heard about the later development of vendors setting up wagons to sell goods and supplies to travelers between trading posts elsewhere. I read this for some research into my Weird West worldbuilding and found it a useful source for the personal touch with regard to some early emigrant types. Alas, it focuses heavily on the male experience but that's typical.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

Broad in scope, so it's a rather topical treatment out of necessity. I've read that there are some pretty major factual errors in here (geographic locations, omissions, and some matter concerning a Lewis & Clark expedition member), but I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to verify.

The passage on the Donner party relies pretty heavily on Virginia Reed's accounts (almost word-for-word in some sentences). Hastings is not outright vilified, which is nice to see--this is not a treatment I'm used to.

[Terry Earley · Rating 2 out of 5]

You have to enjoy reading history to enjoy this book. Although not a rip-roaring tale, it included plenty of first hand accounts which kept me interested. Not a book I would read exclusively, but a nice change of pace when reading something else. It educated on the very important US western migration.

[George Fodor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite Dary's "facts only," journalistic writing style, the details he presents are mesmerizing. Whether he intended to or not, Dary gives his reader's insights into how the almost mythic American can-do personality emerged. One note about the Nook version of this book--the notes are not hyperlinks, you have to set bookmarks to navigate between the narrative and the notes pages.

[Evelyn]

Horrifyingly embedded in the master narrative of conquest, colonialism and Manifest Destiny. The useful thing about it rhough is that it narrates very accurately the history of the white/European fur trade, with dates and supporting references, from the late 1700's through the Europeans impulse/greed toward westward expansion.

[Art · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book read as dry as a bone. It's a bit unfortunate because it contained a lot of good information and certainly helped round out my understanding of how the Western US was settled......but look for an alternative as this one will have you praying for a kidney stone attack to help keep you awake while reading it.

[Michael Westfall · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used this as sort of a guide book as I drove out to Yellowstone along part of the old Oregon Trail. It was invaluable in locating sites along the way and helping to create a sense of understanding of what the emigrants faced as they travelled west.

[Steve Reagin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a good primer on the Oregon Trail especially for someone like me who did not grow up in the West and have this a part of high school history. It is rather dry. Definitely not an Ambrose or McCullough retelling of history.

[Beth]

Ok, I don't actually want to read this one, but Goodreads does not yet show his new one about Frontier Medicine.

[Krista · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fabulous. Courageous. Perilous. Caution: May cause you to be ashamed to be American at times.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Can be tedious at times to read but overall very interesting. I especially enjoyed the journal entries.

[Denali · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just for a report

[Lisa Harvey · Rating 3 out of 5]

During my read, learned the Reuter's Center will offer a course on The Oregon Trail this summer. I'm taking it.

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was really slow getting into. This book gave a fantastic amount of background information on the land before the Oregon Trail was a trail - Lewis and Clark, early trappers, etc. I found this into dry, but once we got into the meat of the book ( about 1/3 the way in), it was fantastic. I learned a lot about the day to day activities, hardships, and triumphs people experienced. I really like that the book went past the Oregon Trail hay days and talked about its decline and later revival many decades after the fact. The little bit of information and restoration and preservation of the trail was a nice touch.