Historic Hood River
Old Oregon Trail Monument Expedition
Notes
We’re going to start the year with a trip back to 1906-07. That is when Ezra Meeker decided to embark on a cross-country journey revisiting locales he first saw roughly 50 years earlier when he was a young man. In 1906 he mounted the Old Oregon Trail Monument Expedition with the goal of identifying and marking remaining sections of the Oregon Trail. Just shy of age 77 he loaded up the ox cart to follow his footsteps eastward to the beginning of the trail, in Missouri, and then beyond, trying to raise funds to put up markers to preserve the memory of the trail and the role it played in history.
Meeker’s own story is an interesting one. He crossed the plains in 1852, made a fortune selling hops to beer makers, lost his fortune to aphids, and found fame with a new passion evangelizing the Oregon Trail story. We’ll spend the week learning all about it from sets of postcards he sold to finance the expedition.
Gladys
Over the years I have read numerous accounts of Ezra Meeker and all the adventures he had in his life, plus the people that he met here and there.
I would love to see this home, but have never had the opportunity, but may one day.
L.E.
This will be a fun expedition.
I always thought my mother in law experienced so many changes in her life. She was born and raised on Government Island where the I205 Bridge now crosses the Columbia. She went from rowing a boat across the river to attend school, to flying around the world on tours.
Ezra Meeker really saw changes.
nails
This place still exists?
What is that apparatus in the foreground?
Arlen L Sheldrake
L.E is right, our parents and grandparents experienced some great changes but then we have also….when I started in the technology business in 1960 I had no idea that the future world would have on demand movies in the home as but one example of what we have experienced.
L.E.
A few years ago, I was at a state basketball tournament in Tacoma. It was on my agenda to go see the Meeker Mansion, but I watched too much basketball. Like Gladys, it is still on my bucket list.
https://www.meekermansion.org
Washington History about Meeker. He really was an energetic character. I have to wonder if his wife, Eliza, was not as eager to relive the Oregon Trail.
https://www.historylink.org/File/7737
Dan K
His monument (End of the Oregon Trail) is still in the city park here in The Dalles.
ArthurB
Well, Dan K, you answered a question from tomorrow's post!
DAVID LYNN JOHNSON
He has another house in Puyallup that nobody knows about. I only know about it because some bottle diggers I know dug the privy.