The Oregon Trail captured in photographs

I remember an archaeology professor in college remarking that over time, roads tend to remain in the same place. He was talking about the Athenian Agora in the 5th century B.C., but I was struck by exactly this idea looking at maps of the Oregon Trail: Routes used by approximately 300,000 pioneers and 75,000 wagons between 1841-60 often closely parallel modern highways and interstates.

The next striking realization, beautifully illustrated by the Moellers' new picture book, is that the voyage was a long, long one, sometimes across flat prairie and sagebrush, other times over heavily forested mountains, but always with many difficult river crossings. Almost the same route, yes, but how the journey has changed!

"Much of the old trail remains and can be seen today," the Moellers state. To evoke a strong sense of the experience, they started from Independence, Mo., in spring, traveled slightly less than the emigrants' 15-mile daily average, and reached Oregon's Willamette Valley more than six months later in autumn.

"We photographed the trail and its landmarks in areas that are virtually unchanged," they note, accompanying most images with both contemporary commentary and a 19th-century quotation.

Their introduction offers a brief history and includes topics such as food, wagon handling and trail conditions. Then, state by state, the Moellers head west.

Each chapter opens with a map showing the Oregon Trail beside today's counterpart highways. Nothing brings home the luxury of pavement and bridges as vividly as the Platte River mudflats of Nebraska, "too thick to drink and too thin to plow," or the rocky chute of Laurel Hill in Oregon, barely 50 miles from the destination, yet one woman reaching it in 1852 wrote, "We viewed that descent in alarm. It looked as if we had come to the jumping off place."

Including four earlier titles based on Western history, places and people, this writer/photographer team has published 10 other books. They've devised a pleasing format that convincingly presents travel on the Oregon Trail. At the back, sites of interest and a bibliography offer both travelers and armchair tourists further places to explore.

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