title: Eid al-Fitr

text: In Ukraine, Eid al-Fitr () as well as Eid al-Adha have been official state holidays since 2020. During the festival, Ukrainian Muslims (most of whom are Crimean Tatars) often gather with loved ones.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: Although Eid al-Fitr is not a recognized public holiday in the United Kingdom, many schools, businesses, and organisations allow for at least a day's leave to be taken for religious celebrations.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: Most of the masajid in the United kingdom hold special events after Eid prayer, including Islamic musical performances, brunch buffets, rides such bouncy castles and carousels.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: New Eid tradition are born in internet era. As elsewhere, Muslims in the United Kingdom celebrate Eid by decorating houses, gift giving and Eid parties for kids.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: In New York City, alternate side parking (street cleaning) regulations are suspended on Eid. Beginning in 2016, New York City public schools also remain closed on Eid. In Houston, Texas, the annual prayers are offered at the George R. Brown Convention Center in downtown Houston, organised by the Islamic Society of Greater Houston (ISGH). In other states, with smaller Muslim populations, it is common that schools will remain open on Eid al-Fitr.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: The United States Postal Service (USPS) has issued several Eid postage stamps, across several years—starting in 2001—honoring "two of the most important festivals in the Islamic calendar: Eid al-Fitr and Eid al-Adha." Eid stamps were released in 2001–2002, 2006–2009, and 2011.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: Most masaajid in the North America held special events after Eid prayer including Islamic musical performance, Brunch Buffets, rides such Bouncy, Carousel, Slide for kids.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: New Eid traditions have been born in the Internet era. Some Muslim in North America now celebrating Eid with decorating houses, gift giving and Eid parties for kids.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: The Muslim population of Trinidad and Tobago popularly eat sawine/vermicelli, a sweet dessert, to mark the celebration, but the feast also consists of curries, rotis, and chicken and curry goat. Eid al-Fitr is a public holiday in Trinidad and Tobago.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: Although the date of Eid al-Fitr is always the same in the Islamic calendar, the date in the Gregorian calendar falls approximately 11 days earlier each successive year, since the Islamic calendar is lunar and the Gregorian calendar is solar. Hence if the Eid falls in the first ten days of a Gregorian calendar year, there will be a second Eid in the last ten days of the same Gregorian calendar year, as happened in 2000 CE. The Gregorian date may vary between countries depending on the local visibility of the new moon. Some expatriate Muslim communities follow the dates as determined for their home country, while others follow the local dates of their country of residence.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: The following table shows predicted dates and announced dates based on new moon sightings for Saudi Arabia.


title: Eid al-Fitr

text: Because the Hijri year differs by about 11 days from the AD year, Eid al Fitr can occur twice a year, in the year 1023, 1055, 1088, 1120, 1153, 1186, 1218, 1251, 1283, 1316, 1348, 1381, 1414, 1446, 1479, 1512, 1544, 1577, 1609, 1642, 1674, 1707, 1740, 1772, 1805, 1837, 1870, 1902, 1935, 1968, 2000, 2033, 2065, 2098, 2131, 2163, 2196, 2228, 2261 and 2293 (will continue to occur every 32 or 33 years).


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam, sold under the brand name Ativan among others, is a benzodiazepine medication. It is used to treat anxiety disorders, trouble sleeping, severe agitation, active seizures including status epilepticus, alcohol withdrawal, and chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting. It is also used during surgery to interfere with memory formation and to sedate those who are being mechanically ventilated. It is also used, along with other treatments, for acute coronary syndrome due to cocaine use. It can be given by mouth or as an injection into a muscle or vein. When given by injection onset of effects is between one and thirty minutes and effects last for up to a day.


title: Lorazepam

text: Common side effects include weakness, sleepiness, low blood pressure, and a decreased effort to breathe. When given intravenously the person should be closely monitored. Among those who are depressed there may be an increased risk of suicide. With long-term use, larger doses may be required for the same effect. Physical dependence and psychological dependence may also occur. If stopped suddenly after long-term use, benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome may occur. Older people more often develop adverse effects. In this age group lorazepam is associated with falls and hip fractures. Due to these concerns, lorazepam use is generally only recommended for up to two to four weeks.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam was initially patented in 1963 and went on sale in the United States in 1977. It is on the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines. It is available as a generic medication. In 2020, it was the 65th most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, with more than 10million prescriptions.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam is used in the short-term management of severe anxiety. In the US, the FDA advises against use of benzodiazepines such as lorazepam for longer than four weeks. It is fast acting, and useful in treating fast onset panic anxiety.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam can effectively reduce agitation and induce sleep, and the duration of effects from a single dose makes it an appropriate choice for the short-term treatment of insomnia, especially in the presence of severe anxiety or night terrors. It has a fairly short duration of action.


title: Lorazepam

text: Withdrawal symptoms, including rebound insomnia and rebound anxiety, may occur after seven days' use of lorazepam.


title: Lorazepam

text: Intravenous diazepam or lorazepam are first-line treatments for convulsive status epilepticus. Lorazepam is more effective than diazepam and intravenous phenytoin in the treatment of status epilepticus and has a lower risk of continuing seizures that might require additional medication. However, phenobarbital has a superior success rate compared to lorazepam and other drugs, at least in the elderly.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam's anticonvulsant properties and pharmacokinetic profile make intravenous use reliable for terminating acute seizures, but induce prolonged sedation. Oral benzodiazepines, including lorazepam, are occasionally used as long-term prophylactic treatment of resistant absence seizures; because of gradual tolerance to their anti-seizure effects, benzodiazepines such as lorazepam are not considered first-line therapies.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam's anticonvulsant and CNS depressant properties are useful for the treatment and prevention of alcohol withdrawal syndrome. In this setting, impaired liver function is not a hazard with lorazepam, since lorazepam does not require oxidation, in the liver or otherwise, for its metabolism.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam is sometimes used for individuals receiving mechanical ventilation. However, in critically ill people, propofol has been found to be superior to lorazepam both in effectiveness and overall cost; as a result, the use of propofol for this indication is now encouraged, whereas the use of lorazepam is discouraged.


title: Lorazepam

text: Its relative effectiveness in preventing new memory formation, along with its ability to reduce agitation and anxiety, makes lorazepam useful as premedication. It is given before a general anesthetic to reduce the amount of anesthetic required, or before unpleasant awake procedures, such as in dentistry or endoscopies, to reduce anxiety, to increase compliance, and to induce amnesia for the procedure. Lorazepam by mouth is given 90 to 120 minutes before procedures, and intravenous lorazepam as late as 10 minutes before procedures. Lorazepam is sometimes used as an alternative to midazolam in palliative sedation. In intensive care units lorazepam is sometimes used to produce anxiolysis, hypnosis, and amnesia.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam is sometimes used as an alternative to haloperidol when there is the need for rapid sedation of violent or agitated individuals, but haloperidol plus promethazine is preferred due to better effectiveness and due to lorazepam's adverse effects on respiratory function. However, adverse effects such as behavioral disinhibition may make benzodiazepines inappropriate for some people who are acutely psychotic . Acute delirium is sometimes treated with lorazepam, but as it can cause paradoxical effects, it is preferably given together with haloperidol. Lorazepam is absorbed relatively slowly if given intramuscularly, a common route in restraint situations.


title: Lorazepam

text: Catatonia with inability to speak is responsive to lorazepam. Symptoms may recur and treatment for some days may be necessary. Catatonia due to abrupt or overly rapid withdrawal from benzodiazepines, as part of the benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome, should also respond to lorazepam treatment. As lorazepam can have paradoxical effects, haloperidol is sometimes given at the same time.


title: Lorazepam

text: It is sometimes used in chemotherapy in addition to medications used to treat nausea and vomiting, i.e. nausea and vomiting caused or worsened by psychological sensitization to the thought of being sick.


title: Lorazepam

text: Many beneficial effects of lorazepam (e.g., sedative, muscle relaxant, anti-anxiety, and amnesic effects) may become adverse effects when unwanted. Adverse effects can include sedation and low blood pressure; the effects of lorazepam are increased in combination with other CNS depressant drugs. Other adverse effects include confusion, ataxia, inhibiting the formation of new memories, pupil constriction and hangover effects. With long-term benzodiazepine use it is unclear whether cognitive impairments fully return to normal after stopping lorazepam use; cognitive deficits persist for at least six months after withdrawal, but longer than six months may be required for recovery of cognitive function. Lorazepam appears to have more profound adverse effects on memory than other benzodiazepines; it impairs both explicit and implicit memory. In the elderly, falls may occur as a result of benzodiazepines. Adverse effects are more common in the elderly, and they appear at lower doses than in younger people. Benzodiazepines can cause or worsen depression. Paradoxical effects can also occur, such as worsening of seizures, or paradoxical excitement; paradoxical excitement is more likely to occur in the elderly, children, those with a history of alcohol abuse, and in people with a history of aggression or anger problems. Lorazepam's effects are dose-dependent, meaning the higher the dose, the stronger the effects (and side effects) will be. Using the smallest dose needed to achieve desired effects lessens the risk of adverse effects. Sedative drugs and sleeping pills, including lorazepam, have been associated with an increased risk of death.


title: Lorazepam

text: Sedation is the side effect people taking lorazepam most frequently report. In a group of around 3,500 people treated for anxiety, the most common side effects complained of from lorazepam were sedation (15.9%), dizziness (6.9%), weakness (4.2%), and unsteadiness (3.4%). Side effects such as sedation and unsteadiness increased with age. Cognitive impairment, behavioural disinhibition and respiratory depression as well as hypotension may also occur.


title: Lorazepam

text: In September 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) required the boxed warning be updated for all benzodiazepine medicines to describe the risks of abuse, misuse, addiction, physical dependence, and withdrawal reactions consistently across all the medicines in the class.


title: Lorazepam

text: Dependence typified by a withdrawal syndrome occurs in about one-third of individuals who are treated for longer than four weeks with a benzodiazepine. Higher doses and longer periods of use increase the risk of developing a benzodiazepine dependence. Potent benzodiazepines with a relatively short half life, such as lorazepam, alprazolam, and triazolam, have the highest risk of causing a dependence. Tolerance to benzodiazepine effects develops with regular use. This is desirable with amnesic and sedative effects but undesirable with anxiolytic, hypnotic, and anticonvulsant effects. People initially experience drastic relief from anxiety and sleeplessness, but symptoms gradually return, relatively soon in the case of insomnia, but more slowly in the case of anxiety symptoms. After four to six months of regular benzodiazepine use, evidence of continued efficacy declines.


title: Lorazepam

text: If regular treatment is continued for longer than four to six months, dose increases may be necessary to maintain effects, but treatment-resistant symptoms may in fact be benzodiazepine withdrawal symptoms. Due to the development of tolerance to the anticonvulsant effects, benzodiazepines are generally not recommended for long-term use for the management of epilepsy. Increasing the dose may overcome tolerance, but tolerance may then develop to the higher dose and adverse effects may persist and worsen. The mechanism of tolerance to benzodiazepines is complex and involves GABA receptor downregulation, alterations to subunit configuration of GABA receptors, uncoupling and internalisation of the benzodiazepine binding site from the GABA receptor complex as well as changes in gene expression.


title: Lorazepam

text: The likelihood of dependence is relatively high with lorazepam compared to other benzodiazepines. Lorazepam's relatively short serum half-life, its confinement mainly to blood, and its inactive metabolite can result in interdose withdrawal phenomena and next-dose cravings, that may reinforce psychological dependence. Because of its high potency, the smallest lorazepam tablet strength of 0.5 mg is also a significant dose. To minimise the risk of physical/psychological dependence, lorazepam is best used only short-term, at the smallest effective dose. If any benzodiazepine has been used long-term, the recommendation is a gradual dose taper over a period of weeks, months or longer, according to dose and duration of use, the degree of dependence and the individual.


title: Lorazepam

text: Coming off long-term lorazepam use may be more realistically achieved by a gradual switch to an equivalent dose of diazepam and a period of stabilization on this, and only then initiating dose reductions. The advantage of switching to diazepam is that dose reductions are felt less acutely, because of the longer half-lives (20–200 hours) of diazepam and its active metabolites.


title: Lorazepam

text: On abrupt or overly rapid discontinuation of lorazepam, anxiety, and signs of physical withdrawal have been observed, similar to those seen on withdrawal from alcohol and barbiturates. Lorazepam, as with other benzodiazepine drugs, can cause physical dependence, addiction, and benzodiazepine withdrawal syndrome. The higher the dose and the longer the drug is taken, the greater the risk of experiencing unpleasant withdrawal symptoms. Withdrawal symptoms can, however, occur from standard dosages and also after short-term use. Benzodiazepine treatment should be discontinued as soon as possible via a slow and gradual dose reduction regimen. Rebound effects often resemble the condition being treated, but typically at a more intense level and may be difficult to diagnose. Withdrawal symptoms can range from mild anxiety and insomnia to more severe symptoms such as seizures and psychosis. The risk and severity of withdrawal are increased with long-term use, use of high doses, abrupt or over-rapid reduction, among other factors. Short-acting benzodiazepines such as lorazepam are more likely to cause a more severe withdrawal syndrome compared to longer-acting benzodiazepines.


title: Lorazepam

text: Withdrawal symptoms can occur after taking therapeutic doses of lorazepam for as little as one week. Withdrawal symptoms include headaches, anxiety, tension, depression, insomnia, restlessness, confusion, irritability, sweating, dysphoria, dizziness, derealization, depersonalization, numbness/tingling of extremities, hypersensitivity to light, sound, and smell, perceptual distortions, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, appetite loss, hallucinations, delirium, seizures, tremor, stomach cramps, myalgia, agitation, palpitations, tachycardia, panic attacks, short-term memory loss, and hyperthermia. It takes about 18–36 hours for the benzodiazepine to be removed from the body. The ease of physical dependence to lorazepam, (Ativan brand was particularly cited), and its withdrawal were brought to the attention of the British public during the early 1980s in Esther Rantzen's BBC TV series "That's Life!", in a feature on the drug over a number of episodes.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam is not usually fatal in overdose, but may cause respiratory depression if taken in overdose with alcohol. The combination also causes greater enhancement of the disinhibitory and amnesic effects of both drugs, with potentially embarrassing or criminal consequences. Some experts advise that people should be warned against drinking alcohol while on lorazepam treatment, but such clear warnings are not universal.


title: Lorazepam

text: Greater adverse effects may also occur when lorazepam is used with other drugs, such as opioids or other hypnotics. Lorazepam may also interact with rifabutin. Valproate inhibits the metabolism of lorazepam, whereas carbamazepine, lamotrigine, phenobarbital, phenytoin, and rifampin increase its rate of metabolism. Some antidepressants, antiepileptic drugs such as phenobarbital, phenytoin and carbamazepine, sedative antihistamines, opiates, antipsychotics and alcohol, when taken with lorazepam may result in enhanced sedative effects.


title: Lorazepam

text: In cases of a suspected lorazepam overdose, it is important to establish whether the person is a regular user of lorazepam or other benzodiazepines since regular use causes tolerance to develop. Also, one must ascertain whether other substances were also ingested.


title: Lorazepam

text: Signs of overdose range through mental confusion, dysarthria, paradoxical reactions, drowsiness, hypotonia, ataxia, hypotension, hypnotic state, coma, cardiovascular depression, respiratory depression, and death. However, fatal overdoses on benzodiazepines alone are rare and less common than with barbiturates. Such a difference is largely due to benzodiazepine activity as a neuroreceptor modulator, and not as an activator per se. Lorazepam and similar medications do however act in synergy with alcohol, which increases the risk of overdose.


title: Lorazepam

text: Early management of people under alert includes emetics, gastric lavage, and activated charcoal. Otherwise, management is by observation, including of vital signs, support and, only if necessary, considering the hazards of doing so, giving intravenous flumazenil.


title: Lorazepam

text: People are ideally nursed in a kind, frustration-free environment, since, when given or taken in high doses, benzodiazepines are more likely to cause paradoxical reactions. If shown sympathy, even quite crudely feigned, people may respond solicitously, but they may respond with disproportionate aggression to frustrating cues. Opportunistic counseling has limited value here, as the person is unlikely to recall this later, owing to drug-induced anterograde amnesia.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam may be quantitated in blood or plasma to confirm poisoning in hospitalized people, provide evidence of an impaired driving arrest or to assist in a medicolegal death investigation. Blood or plasma concentrations are usually in a range of 10–300 μg/L in persons either receiving the drug therapeutically or in those arrested for impaired driving. Approximately 300–1000 μg/L is found in people after acute overdosage. Lorazepam may not be detected by commonly used urine drug screenings for benzodiazepines.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam has anxiolytic, sedative, hypnotic, amnesic, anticonvulsant, and muscle relaxant properties. It is a high-potency and an benzodiazepine, and its uniqueness, advantages, and disadvantages are largely explained by its pharmacokinetic properties (poor water and lipid solubility, high protein binding and anoxidative metabolism to a pharmacologically inactive glucuronide form) and by its high relative potency (lorazepam 1 mg is equal in effect to diazepam 10 mg). The biological half-life of lorazepam is 10–20 hours.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam is highly protein bound and is extensively metabolized into pharmacologically inactive metabolites. Due to its poor lipid solubility, lorazepam is absorbed relatively slowly by mouth and is unsuitable for rectal administration. However, its poor lipid solubility and high degree of protein binding (85–90%) mean its volume of distribution is mainly the vascular compartment, causing relatively prolonged peak effects. This contrasts with the highly lipid-soluble diazepam, which, although rapidly absorbed orally or rectally, soon redistributes from the serum to other parts of the body, in particular, body fat. This explains why one lorazepam dose, despite its shorter serum half-life, has more prolonged peak effects than an equivalent diazepam dose. Lorazepam is rapidly conjugated at its 3-hydroxy group into lorazepam glucuronide which is then excreted in the urine. Lorazepam glucuronide has no demonstrable CNS activity in animals. The plasma levels of lorazepam are proportional to the dose given. There is no evidence of accumulation of lorazepam on administration up to six months. On regular administration, diazepam will accumulate, since it has a longer half-life and active metabolites, these metabolites also have long half-lives.


title: Lorazepam

text: Clinical example: Diazepam has long been a drug of choice for status epilepticus; its high lipid solubility means it gets absorbed with equal speed whether given orally, or rectally (nonintravenous routes are convenient in outside hospital settings), but diazepam's high lipid solubility also means it does not remain in the vascular space, but soon redistributes into other body tissues. So, it may be necessary to repeat diazepam doses to maintain peak anticonvulsant effects, resulting in excess body accumulation. Lorazepam is a different case; its low lipid solubility makes it relatively slowly absorbed by any route other than intravenously, but once injected, it will not get significantly redistributed beyond the vascular space. Therefore, lorazepam's anticonvulsant effects are more durable, thus reducing the need for repeated doses. If a person is known to usually stop convulsing after only one or two diazepam doses, it may be preferable because sedative after effects will be less than if a single dose of lorazepam is given (diazepam anticonvulsant/sedative effects wear off after 15–30 minutes, but lorazepam effects last 12–24 hours). The prolonged sedation from lorazepam may, however, be an acceptable trade-off for its reliable duration of effects, particularly if the person needs to be transferred to another facility. Although lorazepam is not necessarily better than diazepam at initially terminating seizures, lorazepam is, nevertheless, replacing diazepam as the intravenous agent of choice in status epilepticus.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam serum levels are proportional to the dose administered. Giving 2 mg oral lorazepam will result in a peak total serum level of around 20 ng/mL around two hours later, half of which is lorazepam, half its inactive metabolite, lorazepam-glucuronide. A similar lorazepam dose given intravenously will result in an earlier and higher peak serum level, with a higher relative proportion of unmetabolised (active) lorazepam. On regular administration, maximum serum levels are attained after three days. Longer-term use, up to six months, does not result in further accumulation. On discontinuation, lorazepam serum levels become negligible after three days and undetectable after about a week. Lorazepam is metabolized in the liver by conjugation into inactive lorazepam-glucuronide. This metabolism does not involve liver oxidation, so is relatively unaffected by reduced liver function. Lorazepam-glucuronide is more water-soluble than its precursor, so gets more widely distributed in the body, leading to a longer half-life than lorazepam. Lorazepam-glucuronide is eventually excreted by the kidneys, and, because of its tissue accumulation, it remains detectable, particularly in the urine, for substantially longer than lorazepam.


title: Lorazepam

text: Relative to other benzodiazepines, lorazepam is thought to have high affinity for GABA receptors, which may also explain its marked amnesic effects. Its main pharmacological effects are the enhancement of the effects of the neurotransmitter GABA at the GABA receptor. Benzodiazepines, such as lorazepam, enhance the effects of GABA at the GABA receptor via increasing the frequency of opening of the chloride ion channel on the GABA receptors; which results in the therapeutic actions of benzodiazepines. They, however, do not on their own activate the GABA receptors, but require the neurotransmitter GABA to be present. Thus, the effect of benzodiazepines is to enhance the effects of the neurotransmitter GABA.


title: Lorazepam

text: The magnitude and duration of lorazepam effects are dose-related, meaning larger doses have stronger and longer-lasting effects, because the brain has spare benzodiazepine drug receptor capacity, with single, clinical doses leading only to an occupancy of some 3% of the available receptors.


title: Lorazepam

text: The anticonvulsant properties of lorazepam and other benzodiazepines may be, in part or entirely, due to binding to voltage-dependent sodium channels rather than benzodiazepine receptors. Sustained repetitive firing seems to get limited, by the benzodiazepine effect of slowing recovery of sodium channels from inactivation to deactivation in mouse spinal cord cell cultures, hence prolonging the refractory period.


title: Lorazepam

text: Pure lorazepam is an almost white powder that is nearly insoluble in water and oil. In medicinal form, it is mainly available as tablets and a solution for injection, but, in some locations, it is also available as a skin patch, an oral solution, and a sublingual tablet.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam tablets and syrups are administered by mouth only. Lorazepam tablets of the Ativan brand also contain lactose, microcrystalline cellulose, polacrilin, magnesium stearate, and coloring agents (indigo carmine in blue tablets and tartrazine in yellow tablets). Lorazepam for injection formulated with polyethylene glycol 400 in propylene glycol with 2.0% benzyl alcohol as preservative.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam injectable solution is administered either by deep intramuscular injection or by intravenous injection. The injectable solution comes in 1 mL ampoules containing 2 or 4 mg of lorazepam. The solvents used are polyethylene glycol 400 and propylene glycol. As a preservative, the injectable solution contains benzyl alcohol. Toxicity from propylene glycol has been reported in the case of a person receiving a continuous lorazepam infusion. Intravenous injections should be given slowly and they should be closely monitored for side effects, such as respiratory depression, hypotension, or loss of airway control.


title: Lorazepam

text: Peak effects roughly coincide with peak serum levels, which occur 10 minutes after intravenous injection, up to 60 minutes after intramuscular injection, and 90 to 120 minutes after oral administration, but initial effects will be noted before this. A clinically relevant lorazepam dose will normally be effective for six to 12 hours, making it unsuitable for regular once-daily administration, so it is usually prescribed as two to four daily doses when taken regularly, but this may be extended to five or six, especially in the case of elderly people who could not handle large doses at once.


title: Lorazepam

text: Topical formulations of lorazepam, while used as treatment for nausea especially in people in hospice, ought not be used in this form and for this purpose as they have not been proven effective.


title: Lorazepam

text: Historically, lorazepam is one of the "classical" benzodiazepines. Others include diazepam, clonazepam, oxazepam, nitrazepam, flurazepam, bromazepam, and clorazepate. Lorazepam was first introduced by Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in 1977 under the brand names Ativan and Temesta. The drug was developed by D.J. Richards, president of research. Wyeth's original patent on lorazepam is expired in the United States.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam is also used for other purposes, such as recreational use, wherein the drug is taken to achieve a high, or when the drug is continued long-term against medical advice.


title: Lorazepam

text: A large-scale, nationwide, U.S. government study of pharmaceutical-related emergency department visits by SAMHSA found sedative-hypnotics are the pharmaceuticals most frequently used outside of their prescribed medical purpose in the United States, with 35% of drug-related emergency department visits involving sedative-hypnotics. In this category, benzodiazepines are most commonly used. Males and females use benzodiazepines for nonmedical purposes equally. Of drugs used in attempted suicide, benzodiazepines are the most commonly used pharmaceutical drugs, with 26% of attempted suicides involving them. Lorazepam was the third-most-common benzodiazepine used outside of prescription in these ER visit statistics.


title: Lorazepam

text: Lorazepam is a Schedule IV drug under the Controlled Substances Act in the U.S. and internationally under the United Nations Convention on Psychotropic Substances. It is a Schedule IV drug under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act in Canada. In the United Kingdom, it is a Class C, Schedule 4 Controlled Drug under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001.


title: Lorazepam

text: In 2000, the U.S. drug company Mylan agreed to pay $147 million to settle accusations by the FTC that they had raised the price of generic lorazepam by 2600% and generic clorazepate by 3200% in 1998 after having obtained exclusive licensing agreements for certain ingredients.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kansas and nearly all of what are now the states of Nebraska and Wyoming. The western half of the trail spanned most of the current states of Idaho and Oregon.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Oregon Trail was laid by fur traders and trappers from about 1811 to 1840 and was only passable on foot or on horseback. By 1836, when the first migrant wagon train was organized in Independence, Missouri, a wagon trail had been cleared to Fort Hall, Idaho. Wagon trails were cleared increasingly farther west and eventually reached all the way to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, at which point what came to be called the Oregon Trail was complete, even as almost annual improvements were made in the form of bridges, cutoffs, ferries, and roads, which made the trip faster and safer. From various starting points in Iowa, Missouri, or Nebraska Territory, the routes converged along the lower Platte River Valley near Fort Kearny, Nebraska Territory, and led to fertile farmlands west of the Rocky Mountains.


title: Oregon Trail

text: From the early to mid-1830s (and particularly through the years 1846–1869) the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, and business owners and their families. The eastern half of the trail was also used by travelers on the California Trail (from 1843), Mormon Trail (from 1847), and Bozeman Trail (from 1863) before turning off to their separate destinations. Use of the trail declined after the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, making the trip west substantially faster, cheaper, and safer. Today, modern highways, such as Interstate 80 and Interstate 84, follow parts of the same course westward and pass through towns originally established to serve those using the Oregon Trail.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson issued the following instructions to Meriwether Lewis: "The object of your mission is to explore the Missouri river, & such principal stream of it, as, by its course & communication with the waters of the Pacific Ocean, whether the Columbia, Oregon, Colorado and/or other river may offer the most direct & practicable water communication across this continent, for the purposes of commerce." Although Lewis and William Clark found a path to the Pacific Ocean, it was not until 1859 that a direct and practicable route, the Mullan Road, connected the Missouri River to the Columbia River.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The first land route across the present-day continental United States was mapped by the Lewis and Clark Expedition between 1804 and 1806. Lewis and Clark initially believed they had found a practical overland route to the west coast; however, the two passes they found going through the Rocky Mountains, Lemhi Pass and Lolo Pass, turned out to be much too difficult for prairie schooner wagons to pass through without considerable road work. On the return trip in 1806, they traveled from the Columbia River to the Snake River and the Clearwater River over Lolo Pass again. They then traveled overland up the Blackfoot River and crossed the Continental Divide at Lewis and Clark Pass, as it would become known, and on to the head of the Missouri River. This was ultimately a shorter and faster route than the one they followed west. This route had the disadvantages of being much too rough for wagons and controlled by the Blackfoot tribes. Even though Lewis and Clark had only traveled a narrow portion of the upper Missouri River drainage and part of the Columbia River drainage, these were considered the two major rivers draining most of the Rocky Mountains, and the expedition confirmed that there was no "easy" route through the northern Rocky Mountains as Jefferson had hoped. Nonetheless, this famous expedition had mapped both the eastern and western river-valleys (Platte and Snake Rivers) that bookend the route of the Oregon Trail (and other emigrant trails) across the continental dividethey just had not located the South Pass or some of the interconnecting valleys later used in the high country. They did show the way for the mountain men, who within a decade would find a better way across, even if it was not to be an easy way.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Founded by John Jacob Astor as a subsidiary of his American Fur Company (AFC) in 1810, the Pacific Fur Company (PFC) operated in the Pacific Northwest in the ongoing North American fur trade. Two movements of PFC employees were planned by Astor, one detachment to be sent to the Columbia River by the "Tonquin" and the other overland under an expedition led by Wilson Price Hunt. Hunt and his party were to find possible supply routes and trapping territories for further fur trading posts. Upon arriving at the river in March 1811, the "Tonquin" crew began construction of what became Fort Astoria. The ship left supplies and men to continue work on the station and ventured north up the coast to Clayoquot Sound for a trading expedition. While anchored there, Jonathan Thorn insulted an elder Tla-o-qui-aht who was previously elected by the natives to negotiate a mutually satisfactory price for animal pelts. Soon after, the vessel was attacked and overwhelmed by the indigenous Clayoquot, killing many of the crew. Its Quinault interpreter survived, and later told the PFC management at Fort Astoria of the destruction. The next day, the ship was blown up by surviving crew members.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Under Hunt, fearing attack by the Niitsitapi, the overland expedition veered south of Lewis and Clark's route into what is now Wyoming and in the process passed across Union Pass and into Jackson Hole, Wyoming. From there they went over the Teton Range via Teton Pass and then down to the Snake River into modern Idaho. They abandoned their horses at the Snake River, made dugout canoes, and attempted to use the river for transport. After a few days' travel they soon discovered that steep canyons, waterfalls and impassable rapids made travel by river impossible. Too far from their horses to retrieve them, they had to cache most of their goods and walk the rest of the way to the Columbia River where they made new boats and traveled to the newly established Fort Astoria. The expedition demonstrated that much of the route along the Snake River plain and across to the Columbia was passable by pack train or with minimal improvements, even wagons. This knowledge would be incorporated into the concatenated trail segments as the Oregon Trail took its early shape.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Pacific Fur Company partner Robert Stuart led a small group of men back east to report to Astor. The group planned to retrace the path followed by the overland expedition back up to the east following the Columbia and Snake rivers. Fear of a Native American attack near Union Pass in Wyoming forced the group further south where they discovered South Pass, a wide and easy pass over the Continental Divide. The party continued east via the Sweetwater River, North Platte River (where they spent the winter of 1812–13) and Platte River to the Missouri River, finally arriving in St. Louis in the spring of 1813. The route they had used appeared to potentially be a practical wagon route, requiring minimal improvements, and Stuart's journals provided a meticulous account of most of the route. Because of the War of 1812 and the lack of U.S. fur trading posts in the Pacific Northwest, most of the route was unused for more than 10 years.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In August 1811, three months after Fort Astor was established, David Thompson and his team of British North West Company explorers came floating down the Columbia to Fort Astoria. He had just completed a journey through much of western Canada and most of the Columbia River drainage system. He was mapping the country for possible fur trading posts. Along the way he camped at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake rivers and posted a notice claiming the land for Britain and stating the intention of the North West Company to build a fort on the site (Fort Nez Perces was later established there). Astor, concerned the British navy would seize their forts and supplies in the War of 1812, sold to the North West Company in 1812 their forts, supplies and furs on the Columbia and Snake River. The North West Company started establishing more forts and trading posts of its own.


title: Oregon Trail

text: By 1821, when armed hostilities broke out with its Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) rivals, the North West Company was pressured by the British government to merge with the HBC. The HBC had nearly a complete monopoly on trading (and most governing issues) in the Columbia District, or Oregon Country as it was referred to by the Americans, and also in Rupert's Land. That year the British parliament passed a statute applying the laws of Upper Canada to the district and giving the HBC power to enforce those laws.


title: Oregon Trail

text: From 1812 to 1840, the British, through the HBC, had nearly complete control of the Pacific Northwest and the western half of the Oregon Trail. In theory, the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812, restored possession of Oregon territory to the United States. "Joint occupation" of the region was formally established by the Anglo-American Convention of 1818. The British, through the HBC, tried to discourage any U.S. trappers, traders and settlers from work or settlement in the Pacific Northwest.


title: Oregon Trail

text: By overland travel, American missionaries and early settlers (initially mostly ex-trappers) started showing up in Oregon around 1824. Although officially the HBC discouraged settlement because it interfered with its lucrative fur trade, its Chief Factor at Fort Vancouver, John McLoughlin, gave substantial help, including employment, until they could get established. In the early 1840s thousands of American settlers arrived and soon greatly outnumbered the British settlers in Oregon. McLoughlin, despite working for the HBC, gave help in the form of loans, medical care, shelter, clothing, food, supplies and seed to U.S. emigrants. These new emigrants often arrived in Oregon tired, worn out, nearly penniless, with insufficient food or supplies, just as winter was coming on. McLoughlin would later be hailed as the Father of Oregon.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The York Factory Express, establishing another route to the Oregon territory, evolved from an earlier express brigade used by the North West Company between Fort Astoria and Fort William, Ontario on Lake Superior. By 1825 the HBC started using two brigades, each setting out from opposite ends of the express route—one from Fort Vancouver on the Columbia River and the other from York Factory on Hudson Bay—in spring and passing each other in the middle of the continent. This established a "quick"—about 100 days for one way—to resupply its forts and fur trading centers as well as collecting the furs the posts had bought and transmitting messages between Fort Vancouver and York Factory on Hudson Bay.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The HBC built a new much larger Fort Vancouver in 1824 slightly upstream of Fort Astoria on the north side of the Columbia River (they were hoping the Columbia would be the future Canada–U.S. border). The fort quickly became the center of activity in the Pacific Northwest. Every year ships would come from London to the Pacific (via Cape Horn) to drop off supplies and trade goods in its trading posts in the Pacific Northwest and pick up the accumulated furs used to pay for these supplies. It was the nexus for the fur trade on the Pacific Coast; its influence reached from the Rocky Mountains to the Hawaiian Islands, and from Russian Alaska into Mexican-controlled California. At its pinnacle in about 1840, Fort Vancouver and its Factor (manager) watched over 34 outposts, 24 ports, 6 ships, and about 600 employees.


title: Oregon Trail

text: When American emigration over the Oregon Trail began in earnest in the early 1840s, for many settlers the fort became the last stop on the Oregon Trail where they could get supplies, aid and help before starting their homesteads. Fort Vancouver was the main re-supply point for nearly all Oregon trail travelers until U.S. towns could be established. The HBC established Fort Colvile in 1825 on the Columbia River near Kettle Falls as a good site to collect furs and control the upper Columbia River fur trade. Fort Nisqually was built near the present town of DuPont, Washington and was the first HBC fort on Puget Sound. Fort Victoria was erected in 1843 and became the headquarters of operations in British Columbia, eventually growing into modern-day Victoria, the capital city of British Columbia.


title: Oregon Trail

text: By 1840 the HBC had three forts: Fort Hall (purchased from Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth in 1837), Fort Boise and Fort Nez Perce on the western end of the Oregon Trail route as well as Fort Vancouver near its terminus in the Willamette Valley. With minor exceptions they all gave substantial and often desperately needed aid to the early Oregon Trail pioneers.


title: Oregon Trail

text: When the fur trade slowed in 1840 because of fashion changes in men's hats, the value of the Pacific Northwest to the British was seriously diminished. Canada had few potential settlers who were willing to move more than to the Pacific Northwest, although several hundred ex-trappers, British and American, and their families did start settling in Oregon, Washington and California. They used most of the York Express route through northern Canada. In 1841, James Sinclair, on orders from Sir George Simpson, guided nearly 200 settlers from the Red River Colony (located at the junction of the Assiniboine River and Red River near present Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada) into the Oregon territory. This attempt at settlement failed when most of the families joined the settlers in the Willamette Valley, with their promise of free land and HBC-free government.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1846, the Oregon Treaty ending the Oregon boundary dispute was signed with Britain. The British lost the land north of the Columbia River they had so long controlled. The new Canada–United States border was established much further north at the 49th parallel. The treaty granted the HBC navigation rights on the Columbia River for supplying their fur posts, clear titles to their trading post properties allowing them to be sold later if they wanted, and left the British with good anchorages at Vancouver and Victoria. It gave the United States what it mostly wanted, a "reasonable" boundary and a good anchorage on the West Coast in Puget Sound. While there were almost no United States settlers in the future state of Washington in 1846, the United States had already demonstrated it could induce thousands of settlers to go to the Oregon Territory, and it would be only a short time before they would vastly outnumber the few hundred HBC employees and retirees living in Washington.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Reports from expeditions in 1806 by Lieutenant Zebulon Pike and in 1819 by Major Stephen Long described the Great Plains as "unfit for human habitation" and as "The Great American Desert". These descriptions were mainly based on the relative lack of timber and surface water. The images of sandy wastelands conjured up by terms like "desert" were tempered by the many reports of vast herds of millions of Plains Bison that somehow managed to live in this "desert". In the 1840s, the Great Plains appeared to be unattractive for settlement and were illegal for homesteading until well after 1846—initially it was set aside by the U.S. government for Native American settlements. The next available land for general settlement, Oregon, appeared to be free for the taking and had fertile lands, disease-free climate (yellow fever and malaria were then prevalent in much of the Missouri and Mississippi River drainage), extensive uncut, unclaimed forests, big rivers, potential seaports, and only a few nominally British settlers.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Fur trappers, often working for fur traders, followed nearly all possible streams looking for beaver in the years (1812–40) the fur trade was active. Fur traders included Manuel Lisa, Robert Stuart, William Henry Ashley, Jedediah Smith, William Sublette, Andrew Henry, Thomas Fitzpatrick, Kit Carson, Jim Bridger, Peter Skene Ogden, David Thompson, James Douglas, Donald Mackenzie, Alexander Ross, James Sinclair, and other mountain men. Besides describing and naming many of the rivers and mountains in the Intermountain West and Pacific Northwest, they often kept diaries of their travels and were available as guides and consultants when the trail started to become open for general travel. The fur trade business wound down to a very low level just as the Oregon trail traffic seriously began around 1840.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In fall of 1823, Jedediah Smith and Thomas Fitzpatrick led their trapping crew south from the Yellowstone River to the Sweetwater River. They were looking for a safe location to spend the winter. Smith reasoned since the Sweetwater flowed east it must eventually run into the Missouri River. Trying to transport their extensive fur collection down the Sweetwater and North Platte River, they found after a near disastrous canoe crash that the rivers were too swift and rough for water passage. On July 4, 1824, they cached their furs under a dome of rock they named Independence Rock and started their long trek on foot to the Missouri River. Upon arriving back in a settled area they bought pack horses (on credit) and retrieved their furs. They had re-discovered the route that Robert Stuart had taken in 1813—eleven years before. Thomas Fitzpatrick was often hired as a guide when the fur trade dwindled in 1840. Smith was killed by Comanche natives around 1831.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Up to 3,000 mountain men were trappers and explorers, employed by various British and United States fur companies or working as free trappers, who roamed the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 to the early 1840s. They usually traveled in small groups for mutual support and protection. Trapping took place in the fall when the fur became prime. Mountain men primarily trapped beaver and sold the skins. A good beaver skin could bring up to $4 at a time when a man's wage was often $1 per day. Some were more interested in exploring the West. In 1825, the first significant American Rendezvous occurred on the Henry's Fork of the Green River. The trading supplies were brought in by a large party using pack trains originating on the Missouri River. These pack trains were then used to haul out the fur bales. They normally used the north side of the Platte River—the same route used 20 years later by the Mormon Trail. For the next 15 years the American rendezvous was an annual event moving to different locations, usually somewhere on the Green River in the future state of Wyoming. Each rendezvous, occurring during the slack summer period, allowed the fur traders to trade for and collect the furs from the trappers and their Native American allies without having the expense of building or maintaining a fort or wintering over in the cold Rockies. In only a few weeks at a rendezvous a year's worth of trading and celebrating would take place as the traders took their furs and remaining supplies back east for the winter and the trappers faced another fall and winter with new supplies. Trapper Jim Beckwourth described the scene as one of "Mirth, songs, dancing, shouting, trading, running, jumping, singing, racing, target-shooting, yarns, frolic, with all sorts of extravagances that white men or Indians could invent." In 1830, William Sublette brought the first wagons carrying his trading goods up the Platte, North Platte, and Sweetwater rivers before crossing over South Pass to a fur trade rendezvous on the Green River near the future town of Big Piney, Wyoming. He had a crew that dug out the gullies and river crossings and cleared the brush where needed. This established that the eastern part of most of the Oregon Trail was passable by wagons. In the late 1830s the HBC instituted a policy intended to destroy or weaken the American fur trade companies. The HBC's annual collection and re-supply Snake River Expedition was transformed to a trading enterprise. Beginning in 1834, it visited the American Rendezvous to undersell the American traders—losing money but undercutting the American fur traders. By 1840 the fashion in Europe and Britain shifted away from the formerly very popular beaver felt hats and prices for furs rapidly declined and the trapping almost ceased.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Fur traders tried to use the Platte River, the main route of the eastern Oregon Trail, for transport but soon gave up in frustration as its many channels and islands combined with its muddy waters were too shallow, crooked and unpredictable to use for water transport. The Platte proved to be unnavigable. The Platte River and North Platte River Valley, however, became an easy roadway for wagons, with its nearly flat plain sloping easily up and heading almost due west.


title: Oregon Trail

text: There were several U.S. government-sponsored explorers who explored part of the Oregon Trail and wrote extensively about their explorations. Captain Benjamin Bonneville on his expedition of 1832 to 1834 explored much of the Oregon trail and brought wagons up the Platte, North Platte, Sweetwater route across South Pass to the Green River in Wyoming. He explored most of Idaho and the Oregon Trail to the Columbia. The account of his explorations in the west was published by Washington Irving in 1838. John C. Frémont of the U.S. Army's Corps of Topographical Engineers and his guide Kit Carson led three expeditions from 1842 to 1846 over parts of California and Oregon. His explorations were written up by him and his wife Jessie Benton Frémont and were widely published. The first detailed map of California and Oregon were drawn by Frémont and his topographers and cartographers in about 1848.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1834, The Dalles Methodist Mission was founded by Reverend Jason Lee just east of Mount Hood on the Columbia River. In 1836, Henry H. Spalding and Marcus Whitman traveled west to establish the Whitman Mission near modern-day Walla Walla, Washington. The party included the wives of the two men, Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Hart Spalding, who became the first European-American women to cross the Rocky Mountains. En route, the party accompanied American fur traders going to the 1836 rendezvous on the Green River in Wyoming and then joined Hudson's Bay Company fur traders traveling west to Fort Nez Perce (also called Fort Walla Walla). The group was the first to travel in wagons all the way to Fort Hall, where the wagons were abandoned at the urging of their guides. They used pack animals for the rest of the trip to Fort Walla Walla and then floated by boat to Fort Vancouver to get supplies before returning to start their missions. Other missionaries, mostly husband and wife teams using wagon and pack trains, established missions in the Willamette Valley, as well as various locations in the future states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho.


title: Oregon Trail

text: On May 1, 1839, a group of eighteen men from Peoria, Illinois, set out with the intention of colonizing the Oregon country on behalf of the United States of America and drive out the HBC operating there. The men of the Peoria Party were among the first pioneers to traverse most of the Oregon Trail. They were initially led by Thomas J. Farnham and called themselves the Oregon Dragoons. They carried a large flag emblazoned with their motto ""Oregon Or The Grave"". Although the group split up near Bent's Fort on the South Platte and Farnham was deposed as leader, nine of their members eventually did reach Oregon.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In September 1840, Robert Newell, Joseph L. Meek, and their families reached Fort Walla Walla with three wagons that they had driven from Fort Hall. Their wagons were the first to reach the Columbia River over land, and they opened the final leg of Oregon Trail to wagon traffic.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1841, the Bartleson-Bidwell Party was the first emigrant group credited with using the Oregon Trail to emigrate west. The group set out for California, but about half the party left the original group at Soda Springs, Idaho, and proceeded to the Willamette Valley in Oregon, leaving their wagons at Fort Hall.


title: Oregon Trail

text: On May 16, 1842, the second organized wagon train set out from Elm Grove, Missouri, with more than 100 pioneers. The party was led by Elijah White. The group broke up after passing Fort Hall with most of the single men hurrying ahead and the families following later.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In what was dubbed "The Great Migration of 1843" or the "Wagon Train of 1843", an estimated 700 to 1,000 emigrants left for Oregon. They were led initially by John Gantt, a former U.S. Army Captain and fur trader who was contracted to guide the train to Fort Hall for $1 per person. The winter before, Marcus Whitman had made a brutal mid-winter trip from Oregon to St. Louis to appeal a decision by his mission backers to abandon several of the Oregon missions. He joined the wagon train at the Platte River for the return trip. When the pioneers were told at Fort Hall by agents from the Hudson's Bay Company that they should abandon their wagons there and use pack animals the rest of the way, Whitman disagreed and volunteered to lead the wagons to Oregon. He believed the wagon trains were large enough that they could build whatever road improvements they needed to make the trip with their wagons. The biggest obstacle they faced was in the Blue Mountains of Oregon where they had to cut and clear a trail through heavy timber. The wagons were stopped at The Dalles, Oregon, by the lack of a road around Mount Hood. The wagons had to be disassembled and floated down the treacherous Columbia River and the animals herded over the rough Lolo trail to get by Mt. Hood. Nearly all of the settlers in the 1843 wagon trains arrived in the Willamette Valley by early October. A passable wagon trail now existed from the Missouri River to The Dalles. Jesse Applegate's account of the emigration, "A Day with the Cow Column in 1843," has been described as "the best bit of literature left to us by any participant in the [Oregon] pioneer movement..." and has been republished several times from 1868 to 1990.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1846, the Barlow Road was completed around Mount Hood, providing a rough but completely passable wagon trail from the Missouri River to the Willamette Valley: about .


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1843, settlers of the Willamette Valley drafted the Organic Laws of Oregon organizing land claims within the Oregon Country. Married couples were granted at no cost (except for the requirement to work and improve the land) up to (a section or square mile), and unmarried settlers could claim . As the group was a provisional government with no authority, these claims were not valid under United States or British law, but they were eventually honored by the United States in the Donation Land Act of 1850. The Donation Land Act provided for married settlers to be granted and unmarried settlers . Following the expiration of the act in 1854 the land was no longer free but cost $1.25 per acre ($3.09/hectare) with a limit of —the same as most other unimproved government land.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Consensus interpretations, as found in John Faragher's book, "Women and Men on the Overland Trail" (1979), held that men and women's power within marriage was uneven. This meant that women did not experience the trail as liberating, but instead only found harder work than they had handled back east. However, feminist scholarship, by historians such as Lillian Schlissel, Sandra Myres, and Glenda Riley, suggests men and women did not view the West and western migration in the same way. Whereas men might deem the dangers of the trail acceptable if there was a strong economic reward at the end, women viewed those dangers as threatening to the stability and survival of the family. Once they arrived at their new western home, women's public role in building western communities and participating in the western economy gave them a greater authority than they had known back East. There was a "female frontier" that was distinct and different from that experienced by men.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Women's diaries kept during their travels or the letters they wrote home once they arrived at their destination supports these contentions. Women wrote with sadness and concern of the numerous deaths along the trail. Anna Maria King wrote to her family in 1845 about her trip to the Luckiamute Valley Oregon and of the multiple deaths experienced by her traveling group:


title: Oregon Trail

text: But listen to the deaths: Sally Chambers, John King and his wife, their little daughter Electa and their babe, a son 9 months old, and Dulancy C. Norton's sister are gone. Mr. A. Fuller lost his wife and daughter Tabitha. Eight of our two families have gone to their long home.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Similarly, emigrant Martha Gay Masterson, who traveled the trail with her family at the age of 13, mentioned the fascination she and other children felt for the graves and loose skulls they would find near their camps.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Anna Maria King, like many other women, also advised family and friends back home of the realities of the trip and offered advice on how to prepare for the trip. Women also reacted and responded, often enthusiastically, to the landscape of the West. Betsey Bayley in a letter to her sister, Lucy P. Griffith described how travelers responded to the new environment they encountered:


title: Oregon Trail

text: The mountains looked like volcanoes and the appearance that one day there had been an awful thundering of volcanoes and a burning world. The valleys were all covered with a white crust and looked like salaratus. Some of the company used it to raise their bread.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Following persecution and mob action in Missouri, Illinois, and other states, and the assassination of their prophet Joseph Smith in 1844, Mormon leader Brigham Young led settlers in the Latter Day Saints (LDS) church west to the Salt Lake Valley in present-day Utah. In 1847 Young led a small, fast-moving group from their Winter Quarters encampments near Omaha, Nebraska, and their approximately 50 temporary settlements on the Missouri River in Iowa including Council Bluffs. About 2,200 LDS pioneers went that first year and they were charged with establishing farms, growing crops, building fences and herds, and establishing preliminary settlements to feed and support the many thousands of emigrants expected in the coming years. After ferrying across the Missouri River and establishing wagon trains near what became Omaha, the Mormons followed the northern bank of the Platte River in Nebraska to Fort Laramie in present-day Wyoming. They initially started out in 1848 with trains of several thousand emigrants, which were rapidly split into smaller groups to be more easily accommodated at the limited springs and acceptable camping places on the trail. The much larger presence of women and children meant these wagon trains did not try to cover as much ground in a single day as Oregon and California bound emigrants, typically taking about 100 days to cover the trip to Salt Lake City. (The Oregon and California emigrants averaged about per day.) In Wyoming, the Mormon emigrants followed the main Oregon/California/Mormon Trail through Wyoming to Fort Bridger, where they split from the main trail and followed (and improved) the rough path known as Hastings Cutoff, used by the ill-fated Donner Party in 1846.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Between 1847 and 1860, over 43,000 Mormon settlers and tens of thousands of travelers on the California Trail and Oregon Trail followed Young to Utah. After 1848, the travelers headed to California or Oregon resupplied at the Salt Lake Valley, and then went back over the Salt Lake Cutoff, rejoining the trail near the future Idaho–Utah border at the City of Rocks in Idaho.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Along the Mormon Trail, the Mormon pioneers established a number of ferries and made trail improvements to help later travelers and earn much needed money. One of the better known ferries was the Mormon Ferry across the North Platte near the future site of Fort Caspar in Wyoming which operated between 1848 and 1852 and the Green River ferry near Fort Bridger which operated from 1847 to 1856. The ferries were free for Mormon settlers while all others were charged a toll ranging from $3 to $8.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In January 1848, James Marshall found gold in the Sierra Nevada portion of the American River, sparking the California Gold Rush. It is estimated that about two-thirds of the male population in Oregon went to California in 1848 to cash in on the opportunity. To get there, they helped build the Lassen Branch of the Applegate-Lassen Trail by cutting a wagon road through extensive forests. Many returned with significant gold which helped jump-start the Oregon economy. Over the next decade, gold seekers from the Midwestern United States and East Coast of the United States dramatically increased traffic on the Oregon and California Trails. The "forty-niners" often chose speed over safety and opted to use shortcuts such as the Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff in Wyoming which reduced travel time by almost seven days but spanned nearly of desert without water, grass, or fuel for fires. 1849 was the first year of large scale cholera epidemics in the United States, and thousands are thought to have died along the trail on their way to California—most buried in unmarked graves in Kansas and Nebraska. The adjusted 1850 U.S. Census of California showed this rush was overwhelmingly male with about 112,000 males to 8,000 females (with about 5,500 women over age 15). Women were significantly underrepresented in the California Gold Rush, and sex ratios did not reach essential equality in California (and other western states) until about 1950. The relative scarcity of women gave them many opportunities to do many more things that were not normally considered women's work of this era. After 1849, the California Gold Rush continued for several years as the miners continued to find about $50,000,000 worth of gold per year at $21 per ounce. Once California was established as a prosperous state, many thousands more emigrated there each year for the opportunities.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The trail was still in use during the Civil War, but traffic declined after 1855 when the Panama Railroad across the Isthmus of Panama was completed. Paddle wheel steamships and sailing ships, often heavily subsidized to carry the mail, provided rapid transport to and from the east coast and New Orleans, Louisiana, to and from Panama to ports in California and Oregon.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Over the years many ferries were established to help get across the many rivers on the path of the Oregon Trail. Multiple ferries were established on the Missouri River, Kansas River, Little Blue River, Elkhorn River, Loup River, Platte River, South Platte River, North Platte River, Laramie River, Green River, Bear River, two crossings of the Snake River, John Day River, Deschutes River, Columbia River, as well as many other smaller streams. During peak immigration periods several ferries on any given river often competed for pioneer dollars. These ferries significantly increased speed and safety for Oregon Trail travelers. They increased the cost of traveling the trail by roughly $30 per wagon but decreased the speed of the transit from about 160 to 170 days in 1843 to 120 to 140 days in 1860. Ferries also helped prevent death by drowning at river crossings.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In April 1859, an expedition of U.S. Corps of Topographical Engineers led by Captain James H. Simpson left Camp Floyd, Utah, to establish an army supply route across the Great Basin to the eastern slope of the Sierras. Upon return in early August, Simpson reported that he had surveyed the Central Overland Route from Camp Floyd to Genoa, Nevada. This route went through central Nevada (roughly where U.S. Route 50 goes today) and was about shorter than the "standard" Humboldt River California trail route.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Army improved the trail for use by wagons and stagecoaches in 1859 and 1860. Starting in 1860, the American Civil War closed the heavily subsidized Butterfield Overland Mail stage Southern Route through the deserts of the American Southwest.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1860–61 the Pony Express, employing riders traveling on horseback day and night with relay stations about every to supply fresh horses, was established from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. The Pony Express built many of their eastern stations along the Oregon/California/Mormon/Bozeman trails and many of their western stations along the very sparsely settled Central Route across Utah and Nevada. The Pony Express delivered mail summer and winter in roughly 10 days from the midwest to California.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1861, John Butterfield, who since 1858 had been using the Butterfield Overland Mail, also switched to the Central Route to avoid traveling through hostile territories during the American Civil War. George Chorpenning immediately realized the value of this more direct route, and shifted his existing mail and passenger line along with their stations from the "Northern Route" (California Trail) along the Humboldt River. In 1861, the First Transcontinental Telegraph also laid its lines alongside the Central Overland Route. Several stage lines were set up carrying mail and passengers that traversed much of the route of the original Oregon Trail to Fort Bridger and from there over the Central Overland Route to California. By traveling day and night with many stations and changes of teams (and extensive mail subsidies), these stages could get passengers and mail from the midwest to California in about 25 to 28 days. These combined stage and Pony Express stations along the Oregon Trail and Central Route across Utah and Nevada were joined by the First Transcontinental Telegraph stations and telegraph line, which followed much the same route in 1861 from Carson City, Nevada to Salt Lake City. The Pony Express folded in 1861 as they failed to receive an expected mail contract from the U.S. government and the telegraph filled the need for rapid east–west communication. This combination wagon/stagecoach/pony express/telegraph line route is labeled the "Pony Express National Historic Trail" on the National Trail Map. From Salt Lake City the telegraph line followed much of the Mormon/California/Oregon trails to Omaha, Nebraska.


title: Oregon Trail

text: After the First Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869, telegraph lines usually followed the railroad tracks as the required relay stations and telegraph lines were much easier to maintain alongside the tracks. Telegraph lines to unpopulated areas were largely abandoned.


title: Oregon Trail

text: As the years passed, the Oregon Trail became a heavily used corridor from the Missouri River to the Columbia River. Offshoots of the trail continued to grow as gold and silver discoveries, farming, lumbering, ranching, and business opportunities resulted in much more traffic to many areas. Traffic became two-directional as towns were established along the trail. By 1870 the population in the states served by the Oregon Trail and its offshoots increased by about 350,000 over their 1860 census levels. With the exception of most of the 180,000 population increase in California, most of these people living away from the coast traveled over parts of the Oregon Trail and its many extensions and cutoffs to get to their new residences.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Even before the famous Texas cattle drives after the Civil War, the trail was being used to drive herds of thousands of cattle, horses, sheep, and goats from the midwest to various towns and cities along the trails. According to studies by trail historian John Unruh the livestock may have been as plentiful or more plentiful than the immigrants in many years. In 1852, there were even records of a 1,500-turkey drive from Illinois to California. The main reason for this livestock traffic was the large cost discrepancy between livestock in the midwest and at the end of the trail in California, Oregon, or Montana. They could often be bought in the midwest for about 1/3 to 1/10 what they would fetch at the end of the trail. Large losses could occur and the drovers would still make significant profit. As the emigrant travel on the trail declined in later years and after livestock ranches were established at many places along the trail large herds of animals often were driven along part of the trail to get to and from markets.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, providing faster, safer, and usually cheaper travel east and west (the journey took seven days and cost as little as $65, or ). Some emigrants continued to use the trail well into the 1890s, and modern highways and railroads eventually paralleled large portions of the trail, including U.S. Highway 26, Interstate 84 in Oregon and Idaho and Interstate 80 in Nebraska. Contemporary interest in the overland trek has prompted the states and federal government to preserve landmarks on the trail including wagon ruts, buildings, and "registers" where emigrants carved their names. Throughout the 20th and 21st centuries there have been a number of re-enactments of the trek with participants wearing period garments and traveling by wagon.


title: Oregon Trail

text: As the trail developed it became marked by many cutoffs and shortcuts from Missouri to Oregon. The basic route follows river valleys as grass and water were absolutely necessary.


title: Oregon Trail

text: While the first few parties organized and departed from Elm Grove, the Oregon Trail's primary starting point was Independence, Missouri, or Westport, (which was annexed into modern day Kansas City), on the Missouri River. Later, several feeder trails led across Kansas, and some towns became starting points, including Weston, Fort Leavenworth, Atchison, St. Joseph, and Omaha.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Oregon Trail's nominal termination point was Oregon City, at the time the proposed capital of the Oregon Territory. However, many settlers branched off or stopped short of this goal and settled at convenient or promising locations along the trail. Commerce with pioneers going further west helped establish these early settlements and launched local economies critical to their prosperity.


title: Oregon Trail

text: At dangerous or difficult river crossings, ferries or toll bridges were set up and bad places on the trail were either repaired or bypassed. Several toll roads were constructed. Gradually the trail became easier with the average trip (as recorded in numerous diaries) dropping from about 160 days in 1849 to 140 days 10 years later.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Many other trails followed the Oregon Trail for much of its length, including the Mormon Trail from Illinois to Utah; the California Trail to the gold fields of California; and the Bozeman Trail to Montana. Because it was more a network of trails than a single trail, there were numerous variations with other trails eventually established on both sides of the Platte, North Platte, Snake, and Columbia rivers. With literally thousands of people and thousands of livestock traveling in a fairly small time slot the travelers had to spread out to find clean water, wood, good campsites, and grass. The dust kicked up by the many travelers was a constant complaint, and where the terrain would allow it there may have been between 20 and 50 wagons traveling abreast.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Remnants of the trail in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and the entire trail is a designated National Historic Trail.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Initially, the main jumping off point was the common head of the Santa Fe Trail and Oregon trail—Independence, and Kansas City. Travelers starting in Independence had to ferry across the Missouri River. After following the Santa Fe trail to near present-day Topeka, they ferried across the Kansas River to start the trek across Kansas and points west. Another busy "jumping off point" was St. Joseph—established in 1843. In its early days, St. Joseph was a bustling outpost and rough frontier town, serving as one of the last supply points before heading over the Missouri River to the frontier. St. Joseph had good steamboat connections to St. Louis and other ports on the combined Ohio, Missouri, and Mississippi River systems. During the busy season there were several ferry boats and steamboats available to transport travelers to the Kansas shore where they started their travels westward. Before the Union Pacific Railroad was started in 1865, St. Joseph was the westernmost point in the United States accessible by rail. Other towns used as supply points in Missouri included Old Franklin, Arrow Rock, and Fort Osage.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Lewis and Clark Expedition stopped several times in the future state of Iowa on their 1805–1806 expedition to the west coast. Some settlers started drifting into Iowa in 1833. In 1846 the Mormons, expelled from Nauvoo, Illinois, traversed Iowa (on part of the Mormon Trail) and settled temporarily in significant numbers on the Missouri River in Iowa and the future state of Nebraska at their Winter Quarters near the future city of Omaha, Nebraska. The Mormons established about 50 temporary towns including the town of Kanesville, Iowa (renamed Council Bluffs in 1852), on the east bank of the Missouri River opposite the mouth of the Platte River. For those travelers who were bringing their teams to the Platte River junction, Kanesville and other towns became major jumping off places and supply points. In 1847 the Mormons established three ferries across the Missouri River and others established even more ferries for the spring start on the trail. In the 1850 census there were about 8,000 mostly Mormons tabulated in the large Pottawattamie County, Iowa District 21. (The original Pottawattamie County was subsequently made into five counties and parts of several more.) By 1854 most of the Mormon towns, farms and villages were largely taken over by non-Mormons as they abandoned them or sold them for not much and continued their migration to Utah. After 1846 the towns of Council Bluffs, Iowa, Omaha (est. 1852) and other Missouri River towns became major supply points and jumping off places for travelers on the Mormon, California, Oregon, and other trails west.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Starting initially in Independence, Missouri, or Kansas City in Missouri, the initial trail follows the Santa Fe Trail into Kansas south of the Wakarusa River. After crossing Mount Oread at Lawrence, the trail crosses the Kansas River by ferry or boats near Topeka and crossed the Wakarusa and Black Vermillion rivers by ferries. West of Topeka, the route paralleled what is now U.S. Route 24 until west of St. Mary's. After the Black Vermillion River the trail angles northwest to Nebraska paralleling the Little Blue River until reaching the south side of the Platte River. Destinations along the Oregon Trail in Kansas included St. Mary's Mission, Pottawatomie Indian Pay Station, Vieux's Vermilion Crossing, Alcove Springs and the Hollenberg Station which was built for and used concurrently in 1860 and 1861 by the Pony Express. Travel by wagon over the gently rolling Kansas countryside was usually unimpeded except where streams had cut steep banks. There a passage could be made with a lot of shovel work to cut down the banks or the travelers could find an already established crossing.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Those emigrants on the eastern side of the Missouri River in Missouri or Iowa used ferries and steamboats (fitted out for ferry duty) to cross into towns in Nebraska. Several towns in Nebraska were used as jumping off places with Omaha eventually becoming a favorite after about 1855. Fort Kearny (est. 1848) is about from the Missouri River, and the trail and its many offshoots nearly all converged close to Fort Kearny as they followed the Platte River west. The army maintained fort was the first chance on the trail to buy emergency supplies, do repairs, get medical aid, or mail a letter. Those on the north side of the Platte could usually wade the shallow river if they needed to visit the fort.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Platte River and the North Platte River in the future states of Nebraska and Wyoming typically had many channels and islands and were too shallow, crooked, muddy and unpredictable for travel even by canoe. The Platte as it pursued its braided paths to the Missouri River was "too thin to plow and too thick to drink". While unusable for transportation, the Platte River and North Platte River valleys provided an easily passable wagon corridor going almost due west with access to water, grass, buffalo, and buffalo chips for fuel. The trails gradually got rougher as it progressed up the North Platte. There were trails on both sides of the muddy rivers. The Platte was about wide and deep. The water was silty and bad tasting but it could be used if no other water was available. Letting it sit in a bucket for an hour or so or stirring in a 1/4 cup of cornmeal allowed most of the silt to settle out.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In the spring in Nebraska and Wyoming the travelers often encountered fierce wind, rain and lightning storms. Until about 1870 travelers encountered hundreds of thousands of bison migrating through Nebraska on both sides of the Platte River, and most travelers killed several for fresh meat and to build up their supplies of dried jerky for the rest of the journey. The prairie grass in many places was several feet high with only the hat of a traveler on horseback showing as they passed through the prairie grass. In many years the Native Americans fired much of the dry grass on the prairie every fall so the only trees or bushes available for firewood were on islands in the Platte River. Travelers gathered and ignited dried cow dung to cook their meals. These burned fast in a breeze, and it could take two or more bushels of chips to get one meal prepared. Those traveling south of the Platte crossed the South Platte fork at one of about three ferries (in dry years it could be forded without a ferry) before continuing up the North Platte River Valley into present-day Wyoming heading to Fort Laramie. Before 1852 those on the north side of the Platte crossed the North Platte to the south side at Fort Laramie. After 1852 they used Child's Cutoff to stay on the north side to about the present day town of Casper, Wyoming, where they crossed over to the south side.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Notable landmarks in Nebraska include Courthouse and Jail Rocks, Chimney Rock, Scotts Bluff, and Ash Hollow with its steep descent down Windlass Hill over the South Platte.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Today much of the Oregon Trail follows roughly along Interstate 80 from Wyoming to Grand Island, Nebraska. From there U.S. Highway 30 which follows the Platte River is a better approximate path for those traveling the north side of the Platte.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Because of the Platte's brackish water, the preferred camping spots were along one of the many fresh water streams draining into the Platte or the occasional fresh water spring found along the way. These preferred camping spots became sources of cholera in the epidemic years (1849–1855) as many thousands of people used the same camping spots with essentially no sewage facilities or adequate sewage treatment. One of the side effects of cholera is acute diarrhea, which helps contaminate even more water unless it is isolated and/or treated. The cause of cholera (ingesting the "Vibrio cholerae" bacterium from contaminated water) and the best treatment for cholera infections were unknown in this era. Thousands of travelers on the combined California, Oregon, and Mormon trails succumbed to cholera between 1849 and 1855. Most were buried in unmarked graves in Kansas, Nebraska and Wyoming. Although also considered part of the Mormon Trail, the grave of Rebecca Winters is one of the few marked ones left. There are many cases cited involving people who were alive and apparently healthy in the morning and dead by nightfall.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Fort Laramie was the end of most cholera outbreaks which killed thousands along the lower Platte and North Platte from 1849 to 1855. Spread by cholera bacteria in fecal contaminated water, cholera caused massive diarrhea, leading to dehydration and death. In those days its cause and treatment were unknown, and it was often fatal—up to 30 percent of infected people died. It is believed that the swifter flowing rivers in Wyoming helped prevent the germs from spreading.


title: Oregon Trail

text: A branch of the Oregon trail crossed the very northeast corner of Colorado if they followed the South Platte River to one of its last crossings. This branch of the trail passed through present day Julesburg before entering Wyoming. Later settlers followed the Platte and South Platte Rivers into their settlements there (much of which became the state of Colorado).


title: Oregon Trail

text: After crossing the South Platte River the Oregon Trail follows the North Platte River out of Nebraska into Wyoming. Fort Laramie, at the confluence of the Laramie and North Platte rivers, was a major stopping point. Fort Laramie was a former fur trading outpost originally named Fort John that was purchased in 1848 by the U.S. Army to protect travelers on the trails. It was the last army outpost till travelers reached the coast.


title: Oregon Trail

text: After crossing the South Platte the trail continues up the North Platte River, crossing many small swift-flowing creeks. As the North Platte veers to the south, the trail crosses the North Platte to the Sweetwater River Valley, which heads almost due west. Independence Rock is on the Sweetwater River. The Sweetwater would have to be crossed up to nine times before the trail crosses over the Continental Divide at South Pass, Wyoming. From South Pass the trail continues southwest crossing Big Sandy Creek—about wide and deep—before hitting the Green River. Three to five ferries were in use on the Green during peak travel periods. The deep, wide, swift, and treacherous Green River which eventually empties into the Colorado River, was usually at high water in July and August, and it was a dangerous crossing. After crossing the Green, the main trail continued approximately southwest until the Blacks Fork of the Green River and Fort Bridger. From Fort Bridger the Mormon Trail continued southwest following the upgraded Hastings Cutoff through the Wasatch Mountains. From Fort Bridger, the main trail, comprising several variants, veered northwest over the Bear River Divide and descended to the Bear River Valley. The trail turned north following the Bear River past the terminus of the Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff at Smiths Fork and on to the Thomas Fork Valley at the present Wyoming–Idaho border.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Over time, two major heavily used cutoffs were established in Wyoming. The Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff was established in 1844 and cut about off the main route. It leaves the main trail about west of South Pass and heads almost due west crossing Big Sandy Creek and then about of waterless, very dusty desert before reaching the Green River near the present town of La Barge. Ferries here transferred them across the Green River. From there the Sublette-Greenwood Cutoff trail had to cross a mountain range to connect with the main trail near Cokeville in the Bear River Valley.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Lander Road, formally the Fort Kearney, South Pass, and Honey Lake Wagon Road, was established and built by U.S. government contractors in 1858–59. It was about shorter than the main trail through Fort Bridger with good grass, water, firewood and fishing but it was a much steeper and rougher route, crossing three mountain ranges. In 1859, 13,000 of the 19,000 emigrants traveling to California and Oregon used the Lander Road. The traffic in later years is undocumented.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The Lander Road departs the main trail at Burnt Ranch near South Pass, crosses the Continental Divide north of South Pass and reaches the Green River near the present town of Big Piney, Wyoming. From there the trail followed Big Piney Creek west before passing over the Thompson Pass in the Wyoming Range. It then crosses over the Smith Fork of the Bear River before ascending and crossing another pass on the Salt River Range of mountains and then descending into Star Valley. It exited the mountains near the present Smith Fork road about south of the town of Smoot. The road continued almost due north along the present day Wyoming–Idaho western border through Star Valley. To avoid crossing the Salt River (which drains into the Snake River) which runs down Star Valley the Lander Road crossed the river when it was small and stayed west of the Salt River. After traveling down the Salt River Valley (Star Valley) about north the road turned almost due west near the present town of Auburn, and entered into the present state of Idaho along Stump Creek. In Idaho, it followed the Stump Creek valley northwest until it crossed the Caribou Mountains and proceeded past the south end of Grays Lake. The trail then proceeded almost due west to meet the main trail at Fort Hall; alternatively, a branch trail headed almost due south to meet the main trail near the present town of Soda Springs.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Numerous landmarks are along the trail in Wyoming including Independence Rock, Ayres Natural Bridge and Register Cliff.


title: Oregon Trail

text: In 1847, Brigham Young and the Mormon pioneers departed from the Oregon Trail at Fort Bridger in Wyoming and followed (and much improved) the rough trail originally recommended by Lansford Hastings to the Donner Party in 1846 through the Wasatch Mountains into Utah. After getting into Utah, they immediately started setting up irrigated farms and cities—including Salt Lake City. In 1848, the Salt Lake Cutoff was established by Sam Hensley, and returning members of the Mormon Battalion providing a path north of the Great Salt Lake from Salt Lake City back to the California and Oregon trails. This cutoff rejoined the Oregon and California Trails near the City of Rocks near the Utah–Idaho border and could be used by both California and Oregon bound travelers. Located about half way on both the California and Oregon trails many thousands of later travelers used Salt Lake City and other Utah cities as an intermediate stop for selling or trading excess goods or tired livestock for fresh livestock, repairs, supplies or fresh vegetables. The Mormons looked on these travelers as a welcome bonanza as setting up new communities from scratch required nearly everything the travelers could afford to part with. The overall distance to California or Oregon was very close to the same whether one "detoured" to Salt Lake City or not. For their own use and to encourage California and Oregon bound travelers the Mormons improved the Mormon Trail from Fort Bridger and the Salt Lake Cutoff trail. To raise much needed money and facilitate travel on the Salt Lake Cutoff they set up several ferries across the Weber, Bear, and Malad rivers, which were used mostly by travelers bound for Oregon or California.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The main Oregon and California Trail went almost due north from Fort Bridger to the Little Muddy Creek where it passed over the Bear River Mountains to the Bear River Valley, which it followed northwest into the Thomas Fork area, where the trail crossed over the present day Wyoming line into Idaho. In the Eastern Sheep Creek Hills in the Thomas Fork valley the emigrants encountered Big Hill. Big Hill was a detour caused by a then-impassable cut the Bear River made through the mountains and had a tough ascent often requiring doubling up of teams and a very steep and dangerous descent. (Much later, US-30, using modern explosives and equipment, was built through this cut). In 1852 Eliza Ann McAuley found and with help developed the McAuley Cutoff which bypassed much of the difficult climb and descent of Big Hill. About on they passed present-day Montpelier, Idaho, which is now the site of the National Oregon-California Trail Center. The trail follows the Bear River northwest to present-day Soda Springs. The springs here were a favorite attraction of the pioneers who marveled at the hot carbonated water and chugging "steamboat" springs. Many stopped and did their laundry in the hot water as there was usually plenty of good grass and fresh water available. Just west of Soda Springs the Bear River turns southwest as it heads for the Great Salt Lake, and the main trail turns northwest to follow the Portneuf River valley to Fort Hall, Idaho. Fort Hall was an old fur trading post located on the Snake River. It was established in 1832 by Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth and company and later sold in 1837 to the Hudson's Bay Company. At Fort Hall nearly all travelers were given some aid and supplies if they were available and needed. Mosquitoes were constant pests, and travelers often mention that their animals were covered with blood from the bites. The route from Fort Bridger to Fort Hall is about , taking nine to twelve days.


title: Oregon Trail

text: At Soda Springs was one branch of Lander Road (established and built with government contractors in 1858), which had gone west from near South Pass, over the Salt River Mountains and down Star Valley before turning west near present-day Auburn, Wyoming, and entering Idaho. From there it proceeded northwest into Idaho up Stump Creek canyon for about . One branch turned almost 90 degrees and proceeded southwest to Soda Springs. Another branch headed almost due west past Gray's Lake to rejoin the main trail about west of Fort Hall.


title: Oregon Trail

text: On the main trail about west of Soda Springs Hudspeth's Cutoff (established 1849 and used mostly by California trail users) took off from the main trail heading almost due west, bypassing Fort Hall. It rejoined the California Trail at Cassia Creek near the City of Rocks. Hudspeth's Cutoff had five mountain ranges to cross and took about the same amount of time as the main route to Fort Hall, but many took it thinking it was shorter. Its main advantage was that it helped spread out the traffic during peak periods, making more grass available.


title: Oregon Trail

text: West of Fort Hall the main trail traveled about on the south side of the Snake River southwest past American Falls, Massacre Rocks, Register Rock, and Coldwater Hill near present-day Pocatello, Idaho. Near the junction of the Raft River and Snake River the California Trail diverged from the Oregon Trail at another Parting of the Ways junction. Travellers left the Snake River and followed Raft River about southwest past present day Almo. This trail then passed through the City of Rocks and over Granite Pass where it went southwest along Goose Creek, Little Goose Creek, and Rock Spring Creek. It went about through Thousand Springs Valley, West Brush Creek, and Willow Creek, before arriving at the Humboldt River in northeastern Nevada near present-day Wells. The California Trail proceeded west down the Humboldt before reaching and crossing the Sierra Nevada.


title: Oregon Trail

text: There were only a few places where the Snake River was not buried deep in a canyon, and few spots where the river slowed down enough to make a crossing possible. Two of these fords were near Fort Hall, where travelers on the Oregon Trail North Side Alternate (established about 1852) and Goodale's Cutoff (established 1862) crossed the Snake to travel on the north side. Nathaniel Wyeth, the original founder of Fort Hall in 1834, writes in his diary that they found a ford across the Snake River southwest of where he founded Fort Hall. Another possible crossing was a few miles upstream of Salmon Falls where some intrepid travelers floated their wagons and swam their stock across to join the north side trail. Some lost their wagons and teams over the falls. The trails on the north side joined the trail from Three Island Crossing about west of Glenns Ferry on the north side of the Snake River.


title: Oregon Trail

text: Goodale's Cutoff, established in 1862 on the north side of the Snake River, formed a spur of the Oregon Trail. This cutoff had been used as a pack trail by Native Americans and fur traders, and emigrant wagons traversed parts of the eastern section as early as 1852. After crossing the Snake River the cutoff headed north from Fort Hall toward Big Southern Butte following the Lost River part of the way. It passed near the present-day town of Arco, Idaho, and wound through the northern part of what is now Craters of the Moon National Monument. From there it went southwest to Camas Prairie and ended at Old Fort Boise on the Boise River. This journey typically took two to three weeks and was noted for its very rough lava terrain and extremely dry climate, which tended to dry the wooden wheels on the wagons, causing the iron rims to fall off the wheels. Loss of wheels caused many wagons to be abandoned along the route. It rejoined the main trail east of Boise. Goodale's Cutoff is visible at many points along US-20, US-26, and US-93 between Craters of the Moon National Monument and Carey.


title: Oregon Trail

text: From the present site of Pocatello, the trail proceeded almost due west on the south side of the Snake River for about . This route passed Cauldron Linn rapids, Shoshone Falls, two falls near the present city of Twin Falls, and Upper Salmon Falls on the Snake River. At Salmon Falls there were often a hundred or more Native Americans fishing who would trade for their salmon, a welcome treat.


title: Oregon Trail

text: The trail continued west to Three Island Crossing (near present-day Glenns Ferry.) Here most emigrants used the divisions of the river caused by three islands to cross the difficult and swift Snake River by ferry or by driving or sometimes floating their wagons and swimming their teams across. The crossings were doubly treacherous because there were often hidden holes in the river bottom which could overturn the wagon or entangle the team, sometimes with fatal consequences. Before ferries were established there were several drownings here nearly every year.