A 2,170-mile wagon route that carried roughly 400,000 emigrants from the Missouri River to the Pacific Northwest. This archive collects the history, geography, daily life, hazards, and people who shaped the trail — plus a quiz to test what you’ve learned and a link to play the original 1990 game.
This archive is a single place to read the history of the Oregon Trail, walk the route mile by mile on the map, meet the people who shaped it, and play the original 1990 MECC game in your browser. Free, ad-free, written for classrooms.
Between roughly 1841 and 1869 about 400,000 people walked some part of the system of trails that branched out of Independence, Missouri. Around 80,000 of them settled in Oregon; the rest forked south for California's goldfields or the Mormon settlements in Utah. Read about the trailblazing pioneers, the daily hardships, and the landmarks they crossed.
Read the historyPick a profession, outfit a wagon, and walk the trail yourself. The original 1990 release runs in your browser via the Internet Archive's DOSBox emulator — no download, no install, no account. Works on desktop and most modern phones.
Launch the 1990 gameThe 1990 MECC classic plus its sequels and sibling titles — Yukon, Amazon, Africa. Cover, year, history, and a Play button when emulation is ready.
The first MS-DOS port of MECC's Oregon Trail.
The classic 1990 MECC release.
VGA, digitized photographs, and a fuller world.
2,170 miles, Independence (MO) to Oregon City (OR)
Roughly 1841 — 1869, peaking in the 1850s
≈ 400,000 emigrants on the family of western trails
20,000 — 30,000 deaths, most from disease (esp. cholera)
Prairie schooner — smaller than the eastern Conestoga
First Transcontinental Railroad, completed 1869
Oregon National Historic Trail, designated 1978
Independence Rock — the trailside guest book
A complete classroom resource on the Oregon Trail. Each section is its own wiki-grade article with primary sources, references, and a place in the larger story.
A 25-minute, classroom-grade introduction to the trail — origins, geography, daily life, and lasting consequences.
From a fur-trapper's footpath to a continental migration. A timeline of the trail's making and unmaking, 1803 — 1869.
An interactive route, mile by mile. Click any milestone to read its history, distance, and significance.
What a day on the trail looked like — work, food, shelter, children, Sundays, and the diaries that survived the journey.
Disease, drowning, accidents, exposure — the actual causes of trail deaths, ranked against the myths.
The roles inside a wagon train: captain, scout, blacksmith, doctor, hunter, cook — and the families behind them.
Pawnee, Lakota, Cheyenne, Shoshone, Cayuse, Nez Perce — the peoples whose lands the trail crossed.
Bull-whackers, prairie schooners, jumping-off points — the trail had its own vocabulary. Searchable, A — Z.
Twenty questions across history, geography, daily life, and people of the trail — multiple choice, sorting, and map clicks.
Take the QuizThe MECC educational classic preserved in your browser by the Internet Archive. A different way to learn what the trail asked of those who walked it.
Launch the gameWagon, oxen, flour, bacon, rifles, Dutch ovens — the outfit a family needed to make the trip alive.