Subscribe

Shop

Contact

Oregon Trail Painting

The first large wagon train (more than one thousand people) left Independence for the Oregon Territory.

Calamity Jane

Martha Jane Cannary Burke was born in Princeton. The infamous frontier woman was known as “Calamity Jane.” 

6569423 Orig

On this date Samuel T. Hawken arrived in St. Louis to begin making his famous Hawken’s Rifles—the favorite of mountain men and pioneers.

Donner Party 13130

The Donner Party left Independence on this day headed for California. A phony map and bad advice left them stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in winter where they resorted to cannibalism for survival.

Cat05

LaSalle looked across the Mississippi River on this day and saw what is now Missouri. The first European to do so.

The Butterfield Stagecoach

This is the tale of a still-working stagecoach—now fondly named The Journey—that has operated in three different centuries—probably the only stagecoach in this country to do that—and how it is coming home to Missouri.