30: The Oregon Trail (“You Have Died of Dysentery”)

“You damn Yankees will do anything you like.” This is the story of the Oregon Trail, including the reasons pioneers crossed it and the trail’s development. As President Andrew Jackson leaves us and we fly through presidents in rapid succession (RIP President William Harrison), the US is going through the worst economic slump it’ll see until the Great Depression. A mixture of financial urgency and a sense of destiny--Manifest Destiny--now convinces tens of thousands of Americans to trek over 2,000 miles from Missouri’s western edge to Oregon Country. But how can families cross the desert? Or the Rocky Mountains?! Or descend the deadly Columbia River?!! And what about the British HBC’s hold on Oregon Country? We’ll hear all about the fur traders, missionaries, explorers, and early wagon trains that dared to blaze this trail before its heyday of the 1840s-1860s. It’s a dangerous trek. Are you ready to die of dysentery? Good. Because it’s about to get as real as a 1990s middle school computer lab. Let’s hit the Oregon Trail. ____

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