Don Wildman

You mentioned before I was going to bring it up, the Native American tribes.

This is a largely feel-good episode about what these pioneers encountered and the whole adventure of all of this settlement in the West.

Of course, there's elephants in the room when we're talking about this.

You've already mentioned Native Americans were sort of okay with this idea or more so than we might think.

Often they worked as guides, as you say, ferrying off over rivers and so forth.

But the whole image of this thing, I just want to know, was that boiled into the John Wayne movies later on?

Or was this even popularized earlier in the Western media that was coming back later in this period?

Were they scared about this idea or did they kind of understand it better than we think?

Death was a big thing.

I have in my notes, roughly one out of 10 people who undertook this journey died each year.

Is that a fair fraction?

Stephen, let's take another break.

When we come back, we'll discuss the legacies of the trail, the mythology surrounding it, and how it's been remembered in popular culture.

Okay, we're back with Professor Stephen Aaron.

We're finally nearing our destination.

Stephen, I'm curious, how did they know that they'd reached the end of the trail, other than these milestones that I've mentioned here?

And when they got there, was there an office?

How did they set themselves up?

Or had all that been already done for them back at the beginning?

How did the Oregon Trail affect the shaping of the American West and the nation at large?