01Biography
A 21-year-old Ohio schoolteacher when he co-led the 1841 Bartleson-Bidwell Party, the first organised emigrant train to leave Missouri for the Pacific. About half the party split off at Soda Springs, and Bidwell continued to California with the splinter group, arriving with little more than his rifle and the clothes on his back. He went on to found the city of Chico, serve in Congress, and run for President of the United States as the Prohibition Party candidate in 1892.
02Why they matter
Co-led the first organised wagon-train emigration to the Pacific, opening the route the masses would soon follow.
03How they died
Died of natural causes at his home in Chico, California, on 4 April 1900, aged 80. He remained active as an agriculturalist and reformer to the end.
04Legacy
Bidwell Park in Chico, at 3,670 acres one of the largest municipal parks in the United States, is part of the estate he and his wife Annie left to the city. The Bidwell Mansion is now a state historic park.