Westward Ho!
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Transcript:
"I think that what they were, like the reasons for why people were on the trail you know varied. I always had this idea that it was some kind of great adventure. And at least, growing up playing The Oregon Trail on the computer at school - it always just seemed like such an amazing adventure, and that’s why people you know were you know going. And you know it’s like yeah, that was true with the wealthy. And so, what I learned from my research is that there were a lot of wealthy people that went on the trail, and they went sort of out of boredom because things were going so well like on the east coast, or on the eastern United States, in whatever industry they were in. And so they wanted to see what this wild west had to offer them. And, you know, of course all hearing these tales of just like the vast amount of resources that are found in the west. And so, a lot of wealthy people traveled for that reason. Then there were those who were completely desperate. So there’s a lot of people who were poor, had no job prospects, absolutely nothing to their names. And, they, it was like, well either go on this trail, and hope for a better life, for a fresh start, where you know we could get a plot of land. You know the government really wanted people moving out west and they were giving them land as long as they could air quotes improve upon it. So, you know building a structure was considered improving it. And so it was like, well yeah, let’s do this, let’s move west, I’m gonna get land, and there’s all sorts of possibility out there. And there was really no other option for them. There were a lot of people fleeing religious persecution, specifically the Mormons. And they ended, their trail obviously ended in Utah, so they didn’t quite get all the way to the west. The vast majority of them did not make it all the way to the west, they stopped in Utah. But, you know there was all these different reasons for why people were on that trail." - Julie Shafer May 5, 2020