FRONTIERSPIECE 



in 1810 to sail around the Horn and established a trad- 

 ing post at the mouth of the Columbia River — today 

 the flourishing town of Astoria, Oregon. He also sent 

 a body of men overland from St. Louis along what 

 later became the great historic Oregon Trail to the 

 same point. His plan was to attempt to wrest the valu- 

 able fur trade from the Hudson's Bay Company on the 

 American side and capture it for the United States. 

 This was another asset toward the permanent estab- 

 lishment of our western flank. 



Even before the middle of the last century, the fur 

 trade of the Mississippi had been exhausted. Thru 

 the fertile, fluvial soil of this Father of Waters and 

 the Missouri, the agricultural market became so con- 

 gested that ''Mississippi at times found even bacon a 

 hot and cheap fuel." So even for these central set- 

 tlers access to the sea became a necessity. 



Our expansion naturally followed the direction of 

 our greatest length — westward. Thus settlement of 

 the middle West seemed but a halt, a pitching of tents 

 overnight, in the movement, and again the frontier of 

 Europe moved west. 



The starting point of this immigration and of the 

 principal trails was Independence, Missouri. There 

 the Missouri River bent northwesterly, necessitating 

 the beginning of the prairie trails. These naturally took 

 the paths of least resistance, the wake of the redman's 

 course. Southwesterly the Santa Fe trail scorched its 

 way through rock, sand, cactus, mesquite and chapar- 

 ral, conciding eventually with the Gila trail which 

 ended in view of the Bay of San Diego and lovely 

 Point Loma; while the Spanish trail diverged a little 

 northward to the City of the Angels. 



But it was The Great Trail, later known as The Ore- 



