With my interest in the current Migrant Trails in southern Arizona, I am also connecting to a larger network of US history and our continually shifting population migrating across our own frontiers. The working migrant trail builds upon the history of other trails such as the Oregon Trail and the Mormon Trail.
The Emigrant Trail is the classification or 'academic name' collectively applied to the easternmost common stretches of the northern networks of overland wagon trails throughout the near American West, used by emigrants from the eastern United States to settle lands west of the Sierra Nevada and Rocky Mountains during the overland migrations in the middle and later 19th century.
For the emigrants, there was no fence to cross rather they were faced with crossing the frontier filled with mountain ranges and rough terrain.
Oregon Trail (from the 1830s)
Mormon Trail (from 1846),
California Trail (from 1841)
The trail network has become embedded in the folklore of the United States as one of the significant influences that have shaped the content and character of the nation. The remains of many trail ruts can be observed in scattered locations throughout arid parts of the American West. Travelers may loosely follow various routes of the trail network on modern highways through the use of byway signs across the western states.
Up to 50,000 people, or one-tenth of the emigrants who attempted the crossing, died during the trip, most from infectious disease such as cholera, spread by poor sanitation. Hostile confrontations with Native Americans' defending their homelands, although often feared by the emigrants, were comparatively rare. Most emigrants traveled in large parties or "trains" of up to several hundred wagons, usually led by an experienced guide.
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