Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/382

354 were enamored with one idea, that of making homes in far away Oregon. This part of the border was also the starting line for the California and the Mormon migrations. The California movement was only sporadic until 1849. This was seven years after the Oregon movement had become regular. The Mormons first struck across the continent in 1847.

Independence and Westport, just south of the Missouri's great bend to the east, were the gateway of the earliest regular travel and traffic across the plains. These towns are now the suburbs of Kansas City. The Oregon migrations" of 1842 and 1843 were formed exclusively in this vicinity. The old Santa Fe trail led by these settlements. From these points, too, the fur trading companies conducted expeditions annually to the upper waters of the Green River beyond the Rocky Mountains. The route was up the south side of the Kansas River some fifty miles, then turning to the right, the river was forded or ferried and a general northwest course adhered to, more direct for Oregon.

Beginning in 1844 Saint Joseph, then a thriving border town, situated on the river some fifty miles to the north of the first jumping off places, became an important fitting out place. Those who took steamboat passage to the border would naturally wish to make as much of the distance to Oregon in that way as possible. The vicinity of Saint Joseph seemed to furnish excellent facilities for securing the necessary ox teams and other needs for the trip. The Saint Joseph route, too, was a more direct one for those coming across the country from Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. After 1850 the Council Bluffs' route had the largest transcontinental travel. Weston and old Fort Kearney, the present Nebraska City, both on the Missouri, the former between Independence and Saint Joseph and the latter between Saint Joseph and