California Trail

Examples of California Trail in the following topics:

• Oregon and the Overland Trails

  • The Oregon Trail was a 2,000-mile, historic east-west wagon route and emigrant trail that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon and locations in between.
  • The beginnings of the Oregon Trail were laid by fur trappers and traders from about 1811 to 1840; these early trails were only passable on foot or by horseback.
  • The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Bozeman Trail (from 1863), and Mormon Trail (from 1847), who used many of the same trails before turning off to their separate destinations.
  • The Overland Trail (also known as the Overland Stage Line) was a stagecoach and wagon trail in the American west during the 19th century.
  • While explorers and trappers had used portions of the route since the 1820s, the Overland Trail was most heavily used in the 1860s as an alternative route to the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails through central Wyoming.

• The Migratory Stream

  • They followed the main rivers, crossed the mountains, and ended in Oregon and California.
  • By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho.
  • Wagon trails were cleared further and further west, eventually reaching all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
  • The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Bozeman Trail (from 1863), and Mormon Trail (from 1847), up to the respective locations at which the migrants on each turned off to their separate destinations.
  • Some returned with gold from California or were headed to pick up their families and move them all back east.

• The Mormon Exodus

  • Today the Mormon Trail is a part of the United States National Trails System, known as the Mormon Pioneer National Historic Trail.
  • From Council Bluffs, Iowa to Fort Bridger in Wyoming, the trail follows much the same route as the Oregon Trail and the California Trail; these trails are collectively known as the Emigrant Trail.
  • Army had already captured New Mexico and California in late 1846).
  • The trail was used for more than 20 years, until the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in 1869.
  • Willie and Edward Martin, met disaster on the trail when they departed late and were caught by heavy snowstorms in Wyoming.

• The California Gold Rush

  • The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when James W.
  • Marshall found gold at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California.
  • Approximately half of those arrived by sea, while half came from the east overland on the California Trail and the Gila River Trail.
  • Roads, churches, schools, and new towns were built throughout California.
  • A forty-niner, so called because he came to California in 1849, pans for gold.

• Gold Fever in the West

  • The gold rush radically changed the California economy and brought in an array of professionals to the area.
  • In 1846 about 10,000 Californios (Hispanics) lived in California, primarily on cattle ranches in what is now the Los Angeles area.
  • The gold rush radically changed the California economy and brought in an array of professionals, including precious metal specialists, merchants, doctors, and attorneys, who supplemented the numerous miners, saloonkeepers, gamblers, and prostitutes.
  • Thousands of "Forty-Niners" reached California, by sailing around South America (or taking a short-cut through disease-ridden Panama), or walked the California trail.
  • The mountainous areas of the triangle from New Mexico to California to South Dakota contained hundreds of hard rock mining sites, where prospectors discovered gold, silver, copper, and other minerals (as well as some soft-rock coal).

• The Transcontinental Railroads

  • Much of this line is still used by the California Zephyr, although some parts were rerouted or abandoned.
  • The railroad also led to a great decline of traffic on the Oregon and California Trail, which had helped populate much of the West.

• In the West: The Native Americans

  • In 1821, independent Mexico assumed control over Spain's northern possessions that stretched from Texas to California (including the lucrative Santa Fe trade routes that saw the transportation and exchange of manufactured goods, silver, furs, and mules and connected Mexico to California via the Old Spanish Trail).
  • The 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ceded the territories of California and New Mexico to the United States for $18.5 million.
  • The completed Mexican cession covered over half a million square miles, increased the size of the U.S. by nearly twenty percent, and included the states-to-be of California, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming—expanding the United States frontier to its present-day continental size.

• Expansion and the Mexican-American War

  • In the 1830s, the federal government forcibly deported the southeastern tribes to the Indian territory (now Oklahoma) via the "Trail of Tears. "
  • After the demise of the fur trade, they established trading posts throughout the west, continued trade with the Indians, and served as guides and hunters for the western migration of settlers to Utah, Oregon, and California.
  • Americans asserted a right to colonize vast expanses of North America beyond their country's borders, especially into Oregon, California, and Texas.
  • Other significant events included the opening of the Oregon Trail; the Mormon Emigration to Utah in 1846–47; the California Gold Rush of 1849; the Colorado Gold Rush of 1859; and the completion of the nation's First Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869.

• The American Indian Wars

  • Before the Civil War, the western United States had been penetrated by U.S. forces and settlers via the Santa Fe Trail and the Oregon Trail, and as a result of the Mormon emigration to Utah and the settlement of California and Oregon.
  • In the case of the Santa Fe Trail, this was due to the friendly relationship between the Bents of Bent's Fort and the Cheyenne and Arapaho, and in the case of the Oregon Trail, to the peace established by the Treaty of Fort Laramie.
  • Signed in 1851 between the United States and the Plains Indians and the Indians of the northern Rocky Mountains, the treaty allowed passage by migrants and the building of roads and the stationing of troops along the Oregon Trail.
  • They were replaced by the volunteer infantry and cavalry raised by the states of California and Oregon, by the western territorial governments, or by the local militias.
  • However, regions of the West that were settled before the Civil War, such as Texas, New Mexico, Utah, Oregon, California, and Washington, saw significant conflicts prior to 1860.

• The Election of 1980

  • During the presidential campaign, reporters posed questions to Reagan about his stance on the Briggs Initiative (also known as Proposition 6), a ballot initiative in Reagan's home state of California that proposed the banning of gays, lesbians, and supporters of LGBT rights from working in California's public schools.
  • As the former governor of California, Reagan's opposition to the initiative was instrumental in its landslide defeat by Californian voters.
  • Weeks before the election, Reagan had trailed Carter in most polls.