Life Along the Trail

If you think traveling I-80 in your car is, well, uncomfortable and boring, think what it was like for the pioneers who came in covered wagons! Ten miles a day was making good time for them.

From Peter Skene Ogden in 1828, through to the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad in 1869—the Humboldt River served as America’s pathway to the west.

This way came the explorers, fur trappers, and families seeking a new life in California.

With the discovery of gold in California in 1848, what had been a trickle turned into a flood. Over 200,000 souls came this way, including the ill-fated Donner Party.

See how they traveled, what they ate, what they wore. Read from the diaries these brave souls wrote as they endured hardships we can only imagine.

Live the experience with them at our interpretive center—are you tough enough?

"First of all, let us remember a far-off land with the strange name of California. The great Cortés heard of it—a rumor of gold and griffins and black Amazons. Two centuries later, so distant was it and so unknown still, that Jonathan Swift, wishing to put his giant Brobdingnagians in the most unknown parts, wrote that their country lay 'northwest of California.'

The story of the Western Migration—with its chief symbol the covered wagon—has become one of the epic tales of that much-storied people, the Americans..."

—George R. Stewart, The California Trail

What About Your Team? A comparison of the criteria one might use in choosing between horse, mule, or ox for the trip West.

Forty Miles of Desert to cross: Representative diary entries relating the hardships brought about by a shortage of precious water.

"Seeing the Elephant" A popular turn-of-phrase from the period, capturing the exotic essence of the rush to California.

"Towards sundown the air becalms and the dust after rising a few feet high overspreads the plain like a lake of smooth muddy water. [The wagons] show only their tops, which seem to go floating along like little boats in the water. Here and there the heads of the men on foot stick up and glide along in rows and groups like ducks on a pond."

—Diary entry written near the site
of present-day Battle Mountain.

"The experience of any single man, which a few years ago would have made him a hero for life, becomes mere commonplace, when it is but one of many thousands."

—Bayard Taylor, professional
traveler and writer, 1849

Nancy Kelsey (1823-1896) was the first white woman to cross Nevada and go to California (with her husband Ben in the Bartleson-Bidwell Party, in 1841.) She was 18 years old at the time, had a six-month-old baby girl in her arms, and by the end of the trip was pregnant with her second child. Pretty tough lady.

Life for the Travelers Along theTrail

The story of the Western Migration—with its chief symbol the covered wagon—has become one of the epic tales of that much-storied people, the Americans..."

—George R. Stewart, The California Trail

—Diary entry written near the site
of present-day Battle Mountain.

"The experience of any single man, which a few years ago would have made him a hero for life, becomes mere commonplace, when it is but one of many thousands."

—Bayard Taylor, professional
traveler and writer, 1849

Patterns for making your own Pioneer-period costumes:

Life for the Travelers Along theTrail

The story of the Western Migration—with its chief symbol the covered wagon—has become one of the epic tales of that much-storied people, the Americans..."

—George R. Stewart, The California Trail

—Diary entry written near the site of present-day Battle Mountain.

"The experience of any single man, which a few years ago would have made him a hero for life, becomes mere commonplace, when it is but one of many thousands."

—Bayard Taylor, professional traveler and writer, 1849

Patterns for making your own Pioneer-period costumes:

—Diary entry written near the site
of present-day Battle Mountain.

—Bayard Taylor, professional
traveler and writer, 1849