You may have experienced
it through the lens of the old game,
but chances are you have no idea what
everyday life was really like on the Oregon Trail. Packing up your entire
life to face a 2,000 mile stretch of death,
disease, and danger, life on the Oregon
Trail was actually a lot more exciting, and at the
same time, a lot more boring than you'd probably ever think. Today we're exploring
what life was really like on the Oregon Trail. But before we get started,
be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Channel. Oh, and that's just not enough. Leave a comment and let
us know what history you would like to experience. OK, let's get on this wagon. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Oregon Trail was 2,170
miles of danger and boredom that stretched from
Missouri to Oregon. To say daily life
on the Oregon Trail was difficult is a
vast understatement. It was hard work and required
uprooting your entire family and deciding to venture
west for new opportunities. But that didn't stop
thousands of people from hopping onto their
wagons and emigrating into the vast unknown. Maybe it was a
chance to start over. Maybe it was the
thrill of adventure. Maybe it was moving away
from their annoying neighbor. Hello, Newman. Or maybe it was the promise of
a parcel of land double the size of Disneyland. Whatever the reason, people
traveling the Oregon Trail had a goal in mind,
to make the journey and not to die while doing it. The Homestead Act, signed into
law by Abe Lincoln himself in 1862, was also
a big motivator. The act said people could
claim 160 acres of land if they promised to
grow crops on it. Not a bad deal, especially
if you consider the fact that it made it
easier for single, widowed, and divorced women to
claim land in their own names. You go girl. But what was it really like? Well, let's set the
hypothetical scene. It's the mid 19th century. Your current town on the
east coast is overcrowded, and you're sick of living like
a sardine pretty unhygienic sardine can. Maybe your friend Jebediah
won't stop talking your ear off about wolf pelts. And you start to think,
hey, maybe this west thing is the best thing. And hey, a football
stadium's worth of land in exchange for
growing a few crops? [LAUGHING] What could go wrong? [MUSIC PLAYING] Turns out, a lot can go
wrong, especially when you're traveling
thousands of miles without modern medicine
and infrastructure. And when we say go
wrong, we mean death. Death, death, death, and death. Everywhere you look, death. Whomever said nature was
the best medicine clearly never tried to survive outside
with just a flimsy wagon to protect them. If you died crossing the
Oregon Trail, 9 times out of 10 it was from some sort of
disease and serious illness. Smallpox, flu, measles,
mumps, and tuberculosis could jump through
an entire wagon camp faster than you can say
yeehaw, and those pioneers could do little to prevent it. One of the most dreaded
illnesses you could catch was cholera. It can affect
someone at breakfast, and then by the time lunch
rolled around, they'd be dead. Cholera, that'll
ruin an appetite. [MUSIC PLAYING] If you've ever
moved anywhere, you know the nightmare
that goes along with deciding what to
pack up, donate, or toss. Now multiply that
nightmare by 1,000. If you were an
Oregon Trail pioneer, you'd have to pack
insanely light. Typical wagons could
carry 2,000 pounds, which sounds like a lot. But when you consider the
fact that 1,800 pounds of that was food, you'd have to
reckon with the sad reality of ditching your favorite
beat up La-Z-Boy, or whatever else the 1800s
equivalent was at the time. Oregon Trail wagons
were packed mostly with food and essentials. And let's just say the
grocery list was not exactly a gourmet situation. Pioneers brought along flour,
crackers, bacon, sugar, coffee, tea, and beans. They packed light when it came
to kitchen supplies, clothes, and other items. And they did it all without the
help of organizing guru Marie Kondo. Impressive. Along the way, any animals
they brought would likely start getting tired or
hurt, and sometimes they'd become food as a result. If you
were traveling along the Oregon Trail and something broke,
you couldn't store it until you got the
chance to repair it. Lightening the load
was a constant issue, so pioneers would ditch
their broken supplies on the side of the
road to save weight. Litter bugs. And hey, if you don't like
the idea of seeing trash on the road, you're definitely
not going to like this. [MUSIC PLAYING] Human bodies and trash
were treated the same among the Oregon Trail pioneers. Which is to say, they
were ditched hastily on the side of the road. When you factor in a much
lower life expectancy and lack of medical care, death
was just a fact of life when it came to crossing
the Oregon Trail. Everywhere they looked,
darkness waited. People died from
disease, crossing rivers, horses bucking
riders, and/or getting crushed by a wagon wheel. Gun deaths were also
pretty common on the trail. Other causes of a
trail rider's demise included lightning storms, grass
fires, hailstorms, snake bites, gunpowder explosions,
suicide, and pioneer on pioneer violence. If you passed onto the great
buffalo bullpen in the sky, the remaining pioneers
would bury your body directly onto the trail
so animals and wagons could roll right over it. This would help ease the
scent if any wolves were looking for a quick snack. Bodies became literal
speed bumps on the road. Rest in peace became rest
in peace on the trail. If you're hung up
on the stereotypes that Native Americans posed
a huge threat to the pioneers crossing the Oregon
Trail, think again. As pioneers were passing
through and settling on land, Native Americans were more
often than not, kind, friendly, and even traded with land hungry
pioneers for goods and food. [MUSIC PLAYING] In the mid 19th century,
traveling across the country wasn't as easy as
hopping on a Boeing 747 and chomping down on the
pretzels for a few hours. Back then, the 2,170
miles from Missouri to Oregon and California would
take between four and six months to complete. Talk about a long,
boring road trip. Couldn't even
listen to podcasts. Wealthier pioneers could
avoid the bumpy road trip by springing for expensive
passage on a ship. But that took a
full year, and it meant they'd miss all the
wonders of the American plains. But still, some people opted
for a year of seasickness. [MUSIC PLAYING] There was absolutely a right
and a wrong time of year to travel the Oregon Trail. Like traveling to Arizona
in the middle of July, there were just
certain seasons which made the journey uninhabitable. Except instead of suffering
a mighty sunburn by the hotel pool, the consequence
for traveling the trail at the wrong time
meant certain death. Pioneers left too
early in the year, the oxen would starve to
death because the grass along the route
hadn't grown enough. Without oxen and cattle,
pioneers were screwed. If they left too
late in the year, travelers might get stuck
in the brutally cold winter and have to deal with frostbite
and freezing to death. And if pioneers got stranded,
they couldn't exactly call an Uber to take them home. And even if Uber
existed, the surcharges would have been way too high. [MUSIC PLAYING] Close your eyes and
picture a pioneer traveling across the
country in a wagon. Is it a boat shaped Conestoga
wagon with sweeping canopies and a huge cargo area? Good. Now erase that image from
your head, because it's wrong. Big bulky wagons
were poorly suited for functioning on the rugged
terrain of the Oregon Trail. Instead, most pioneers
opted for smaller wagons known as prairie schooners. Their smaller design made
for a notoriously bumpy ride, which is why most
people preferred to walk next to the wagon instead. Probably a good idea,
considering they didn't come with vomit bags. [MUSIC PLAYING] Keeping your mental health
intact during a 2,000 mile walk across a bleak and
deadly landscape accompanied by the same small group
of friends and family was no easy task. And sadly for many people, it
was straight up impossible. One darkly tragic
tale of the trail happened to a woman
named Elizabeth Markham. While traveling with her family
along the eerily named Snake River, she announced that
she wasn't going any further. No amount of coaxing could
get her to join the group, so her husband was forced to
take the wagons and children and abandon her. Her husband did eventually
send their son back to get her, but that maybe wasn't the
best idea he'd ever had. Eventually, Elizabeth
returned to the family and promptly informed them
that she had killed her son by clubbing him to death. Yikes. Her husband raced back
to retrieve the son and found him clinging to life. Upon their return, they found
that Markham had set fire to one of their wagons. [MUSIC PLAYING] As time went on, the trend
of packing up your belongings and heading out west
caught on like wildfire. If you were an in the know
early trendsetter of 1841, you'd leave in a group of
70 for the Oregon Trail. In 1843 however,
things really exploded. A group of over 1,000
people left from the Midwest as the cross-country
exhibition gained popularity. And in 1845, the number
jumped up to 3,000, making it America's
hottest new trend, right up there alongside bonnets
and the Mexican-American war. [MUSIC PLAYING] The Oregon Trail pioneers may
have left almost 200 years ago, but that doesn't mean they
don't share the same bored habits that we do today. They killed time by doing one
of America's favorite pastimes, doodling. A lot of pioneers painted
messages on their wagons, and many took part
in the tradition of carving their names, the
date, and their hometowns on some of the gigantic
stones they passed. They basically treated
our natural resources like a high school
bathroom wall. One rock pioneers
especially loved was Independence
Rock in Wyoming, a massive 128 foot tall slab. It was nicknamed The
Register of the Desert. And over the years,
thousands of travelers left their marks on
the gigantic rock. Graffiti taggers would be proud. To say daily life
on the Oregon Trail was difficult is a
vast understatement. Life on the Oregon
Trail was brutal. And for many, many
people, it ended in death. If you could survive walking
2000 miles in their disease battling resource
scrounging shoes, then you'd probably make a
pretty good road trip buddy today. How would you like to
cross the Oregon Trail? Let us know in the
comments below. And while you're at it, check
out some of these other videos from our weird history. [MUSIC PLAYING]
