It was at Fort Bridger that some eighty-seven members of the wagon train, including the Donner bothers and their families, decided to separate from the main body and travel this new route west. Here a fateful decision was made.īefore leaving Illinois, James Reed had heard of a newly discovered route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains that promised to cut as many as 300 miles off their journey. Although tedious, their journey was uneventful until reaching the small trading post at Fort Bridger in modern-day Wyoming in mid-July. As they traveled to the Mississippi River they joined other adventurers with the same goal until their caravan stretched for two miles while under way. They estimated it would take four months to accomplish their objective. George Donner, a sixty-year-old farmer was chosen as the wagon train's captain and the expedition took his name. He also sought to find a temperate climate that would alleviate his wife's physical maladies. The trek had been organized by James Reed, a businessman who hoped to prosper in California. Numbering about thirty-two members that ranged in age from infants to the elderly, the expedition pointed their nine brand-new wagons west on a journey that would lead them into history. In mid April 1846, eight families gathered at Springfield, Il with a common goal – to find a better life beyond the Rockies.
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