Mile 284: Lone Tree Station
“In time or course climbed slightly to a flat upland covered with grain. This was evidently Nine Mile Ridge, where in staging days stood Lone Tree Station. The solitary tree…
Mile 238: The Narrows
“According to our maps, “the Narrows” was the next place of interest. It is mainly notable because, at this point on the Little Blue, the emigrants seemed to forget all…
Mile 228: Kiowa Station
“Near Kiowa Station the nature of the terrain changed. The hitherto smooth slopes broke into rain-gutted saddles and deep-washed gullies. The wagons had steered a dizzy course like a line…
Little Blue Valley
“For years Marysville, Kansas, marked the end of the truly settled country; but the Little Blue Valley, so, charming and so fertile, sheltered a sort of border zone of ranches…
The Big Blue
“Except under abnormal conditions the camp site under these old trees [by the Big Blue] was an oasis, comfortable and even luxurious with fresh-water clams from the river, berries from…
Rolling Prairie
“Our way led over a succession of grassy swells spaced at intervals with breezeless hollows. What a country to have traveled before the day of the graded road and the…
Dust Killing Oxen
Oxen could tolerate lack of water fairly well because their third stomach, the rumen, stores extra water. It was the dust that killed them. “The worst enemy they had was dust,”…
Feeding Oxen on the Trail
“Oxen can do very well on sagebrush,” notes Ford, “and in the spring when the sagebrush is frst starting to grow, they can eat evergreens . . . but dry…
Cost of Livestock
Draft animals were the single most expensive component of an overland Ford draws on his historical knowledge of the period to point out the economics of buying stock. “In 1847,…
Steering Oxen
Unlike horses and mules, oxen are not directly controlled with bridle, bit, and reins handled by a driver seated in the wagon behind them. Instead, the drover walks to the…
Ox Degree
Now, suppose you have three teams of horned steers, all yoked up and pulling your wagon along the Oregon Trail. Ford will point out that you still don’t necessarily have…
Yoking Oxen
When Ford demonstrates the historical method for yoking a well-trained team, he places his oxen—in this example, Thor and Zeus—side by side in the driving position. Standing beside the team,…
Steers Make the Best Oxen
Bulls can be trained to pull a wagon, but steers (that is, castrated males) are preferred, largely because they grow larger and stronger. . . . “Because he has longer…
Oxen Are “Educated” Cattle
"The oxen that drew emigrant wagons west were just everyday domestic cattle, Bos taurus, that had been trained to pull under yoke. That training is what distinguishes an ox from…
Rate of Travel With Oxen
"The journey [to California or Oregon] was some fifteen-hundred to two-thousand miles across plains, mountains, and desert—at an ox pace of two miles per hour. Including rest breaks, the average…