The Long Haul West: Life on the Oregon Trail By ... - Lourdes College

families who travelled there for many generations. <strong>The</strong> Oregon Territory when first settled was
without government and therefore lacked the stability of the places where the settlers had come
from. <strong>The</strong> subject of government was a tricky subject for the area because there was no clear
owner of the land. Both the British and the Americans felt that they had claim to the region,
however neither set up any sort of government. <strong>The</strong> pioneers that had come there from America
bestowed with the love of law and order which had been handed down from the revolutionary
fathers and survived through the civil war would create their own provincial government. That
was until the United States would claim the land as its own. While there was a clear lack of
government in the Oregon Territory the American nation saw a real threat to their people from
the hostile Indian nations that occupied the territory. To combat the threat of the Indians wiping
out the Americans army troops were sent to the region to look after these affairs. 56
<strong>The</strong>se settlers had very important roles in the nation’s production of food and natural
resources. Until the railroad was constructed, shipping would be a huge industry in the Upper
Northwest. <strong>The</strong>ir production included but was not limited to; “petroleum, lumber, livestock, and
a variety of cereal grains, fruit and other farm products.” 57
Transcontinental Railway 1860’s
In 1862, President Lincoln would sign an act that would secure the future of a
transcontinental railroad and telegraph lines and the end of the Wagoner era. This in itself would
be the beginning of the end for the Oregon Trail. Once people and information could be
transferred, quickly and efficiently, there would be no use for a disease ridden trail that was
swamped with poor Indians whose only options were to beg from the white travelers. With the
act signed in 1862 it would take two separate companies until 1869 to complete the line. Once
the first transcontinental rail line was finished it would be a race to create many more lines and in
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