Il Partito Donner

The Donner Party

Daniel M. Rosen has created a daily diary of the Donner Party’s Journey. The Donner party traveled from Springfield, Illinois to a lake west of Reno, Nevada in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. Eighty-seven emigrant members of the wagon train were unable to cross the mountain range before winter. Daniel M. Rosen presents a well written tragedy of the ill-fated journey.
The winter of 1846 to 1847 was harsh and blamed for the failure of the Donner Party. However; the spring of 1846 was extremely wet and rivers were swollen in the eastern states. The Donner Party was delayed more than a week by swollen rivers and water filled swamps during the first two months of travel. The Donners traveled with another family named Reed, hence the name “The Donner- Reed Party”. Hundreds of families accompanied the Donner-Reed Party, forming a long wagon train including some traveling just on horseback.
The Donner- Reed Party used a brand new trail from Wyoming into Utah then Nevada. The new trail was discovered by a Mr. Hastings who had traveled the route on horseback a year earlier. This shortcut is known as the “Hastings Cutoff “and the Donner- Reed Party made a fateful decision to take the “shortcut”. The shortcut was a time saver for scouts on horseback. The Donner- Reed Party was not on horseback but was encumbered with many large overloaded wagons.
The Donner- Reed Party was delayed during the journey by many factors; not one single fatal decision.
A folder containing placemarks with information about the journey can be downloaded from the attachment. This is not meant to be a tour mode type of journey since this mode of play is too fast for the information contained within. I would strongly recommend going through each placemark one at a time.
I hope you enjoy the story told with words and geography as only Keyhole’s Earth viewer can present.
The Donner Party by Daniel M. Rosen contains the diaries, logs, letters and first hand accounts in the words of the actual members involved. The fascinating collection can be foundhere.


Placemarks concerning John A Sutter, his fort, and the correct placement of Fort Laramie were edited based upon user comments and verification of those comments.Great post. Deshoveled! Kudos. Kudos. Here is a brief, less academic discussion fromPBS.

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There are none so blind......great job, I was wondering where the canabolisism came in though.

Thanks this again is a great addition to keyhole
--agrk

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Stevens
Jacobs CivilGotta say it - Great Post -
It's a nice original use of Earthviewer as a story teller.
-I do recommend viewing each placemark one at a time. Do not play a tour unless you use a 12 second dwell time.
Each placemark contains information about the point of interest.
Thanks for the comments and I did leave out the cannibalism part for the general audience. Please, if you have a problem, let me know.

Shuv


Edited by shuvman (11/29/04 09:48 PM)Well done Shuvie. Maybe you should look into the tour guide business. A good example of some research and mapping skills.

I have just one question. You think they should have used I-80? That's the way I usually go. But I guess all that traffic would have spooked the oxen, or maybe they just didn't bring chains!

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Lrae,
I kept seeing I-80 while i was creating the post. Believe me when I say; I wish they could have taken I-80 and I even made up my own jokes about the trip. Wooee they had it rough.Well done !!!!.... enjoyed !On a serious note, I-80's rout was through the donner pass, and it was designed as per the doner's route, as they did find a pass..

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Stevens
Jacobs Civilno problem, just when i was learning this in high school, all my classmates were fixatated on the cannibalism, and that’s what I first relate to the party.

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Stevens
Jacobs Civil