National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

David here.  I grew up in Oregon, and throughout grade school we learned about the Oregon Trail.  We even learned the Oregon State Song, which is all about the Oregon Trail emigrants and the ones who followed them to Oregon.

However, I've never been to the BLM's Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center in Baker City, Oregon.  So, today, on our move from John Day, Oregon to Wallowa, Oregon, we made one of our few exceptionz to our "no stops" policy, and stopped at the Interpretive Center at lunchtime.  Here I am with my historic sign:

When I grew up, in the 1960's, the most important landmark relating to the Oregon Trail was this obelisk outside Baker City:

Any school kid who studied Oregon history knew about the obelisk, and we all wanted to see it.  I never had.  Until today!  By lucky coincidence, the Interpretive Center, which opened in 1992, was built near the famous obelisk, so I had a chance to see both!

The Oregon Trail Interpretive Center is operated by the BLM in partnership with Trail Tenders and the Oregon Trail Preservation Trust, and offers living history demonstrations, interpretive programs, exhibits, multi-media presentations, special events, and more than four miles of interpretive trails.

It didn't take Kathy long to get in the spirit of the Oregon Trail.  She found a used wagon she thought would be useful for the long, 2000 mile journey:

The Interpretive Center has large windows with impressive vistas looking west toward the Blue Mountains, from a pass that emigrants would have crossed as they headed for the Willamette Valley:

The Oregon Trail stretched from Independence, Missouri to Oregon City, Oregon, covering many of the same hard miles that the California Trail covered.  (We had visited the BLM's National Historic California Trail Interpretive Center near Elko, Nevada, and talk about it in our blog entry, "Along the California Trail.")

The emigrants suffered many privations along the trail, and the Interpretive Center did a good job of describing their experience:

Kathy got so excited about the trip, that she took her own virtual Oregon Trail trip by doing rubbins of various exhibit plaques in a booklet provided by the Interpretive Center:

The Interpretive Center provided a lot of primary documentation about the emigrants' trip, including photographs --

-- and a wall-size copy of Albert Bierstadt's famous painting, "Oregon Trail":

There were many privations and disappointments along the trail, but, once the emigrants spotted Mount Hood, they knew that, whether they proceeded by floating down the dangerous rapids of the Columbia River, or whether they took the overland route known as the "Barlow Road," they were nearing their new home:

Ezra Meeker was an American pioneer who traveled the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon as a young man, migrating from Iowa to the Pacific Coast. Late in life he worked to memorialize the Trail, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth. After his initial trip west, Meeker and his family briefly stayed near Portland, then journeyed north to live in the Puget Sound region. They settled at what is now Puyallup in 1862, where Meeker grew hops for use in brewing beer. By 1887, his business had made him wealthy, and his wife built a large mansion for the family. In 1891 an infestation of hop aphids destroyed his crops and took much of his fortune. He later tried his hand at a number of ventures, and made four largely unsuccessful trips to the Klondike, taking groceries and hoping to profit from the gold rush.

Meeker became convinced that the Oregon Trail was being forgotten, and he determined to bring it publicity so it could be marked and monuments erected. In 1906–1908, although in his late 70s, he retraced his steps along the Oregon Trail by wagon, seeking to build monuments in communities along the way. His trek reached New York, and in Washington, D.C. he met President Theodore Roosevelt. He traveled the Trail again several times in the final two decades of this life, including by oxcart in 1910–1912 and by airplane in 1924.

On his first retracing trip in 1906, Meeker placed 20 stone monuments such as the one below in various communities in Oregon.  Most of the monuments have been preserved, and one is kept at the Interpretive Center:

From the Interpretive Center, it is possible to walk a 4-mile trail down to a section of the Oregon Trail where wagon ruts still march westward toward the Blue Mountains.  We could see the trail from the Interpretive Center (crossing from left to right in the center of the photo below):

Walking back to our RV from the Interpretive Center, it seemed to me that it looked not unlike those old Prairie Schooners, with its Jeep lashed to the back much like horses were tied to the back of the wagons as the emigrants made that dangerous crossing.

Thus inspired, we climbed back in our wagon -- I mean, RV -- to head on to Wallowa and dreamed of our plans to celebrate Northeastern Oregon over the next week.

I must admit that Kathy got a little tired of me singing Burl Ives' "Down the Oregon Trail" over and over, for the rest of the afternoon.  But she understood how the Oregon Trail inspired my friends, my family and me!