Wagon Trains Recreate Pioneer History

Sitting tall on the seat of an 1850s freight wagon, Rick Newborn keeps an eye on Frosty and Odie and his six other draft horses as they plod toward 7,380-foot Echo Summit in the Sierra Nevada near South Lake Tahoe, Calif. (pop. 23,609).

“Come on, Bella,” coaxes Newborn, 52, while his hands skillfully maneuver eight sets of reins to keep the horses pulling as a team. “You can carry more weight than that.”

Inside the creaking and swaying wagon, Olivia Opsahl, 8, of Pollock Pines, Calif. (pop. 4,728), pushes back her calico sunbonnet to get a better view of a waterfall ahead.

 “Look!” she says, pointing to the stream cascading from snowcapped mountains. Her twin, Natalya, and best friend, Holly Ferdon, 7, scramble to their knees on the wagon bench in their white pinafores and long pioneer dresses. The girls gaze in wonderment as the wagon rolls past the majestic waterfall at 3 mph.

LINK: Veteran wagon master Ben Kern logs 25,000 miles

Since 1949, modern-day adventurers have enjoyed a traveling American history lesson on the Highway 50 Association Wagon Train. First organized to commemorate the centennial of the 1849 California Gold Rush, the wagon train proved so popular that it’s followed the route of fortune seekers and pioneers every year since.

Westward Migration
Billed as the Granddaddy of All Wagon Trains, the weeklong trek today commemorates the Great Western Migration as the caravan traverses 70 miles of Highway 50 from Zephyr Cove, Nev. (pop. 1,649), to Placerville, Calif. (pop. 9,610). Known as the Roaring Road in the 1850s, the route at times was so crowded that wagons were backed up for days.

“It was just a dirt path,” says Vi Tara, 68, president of the Highway 50 Association. “The pioneers would have to dismantle their wagons and carry them piece by piece over the boulders.”

Dressed in buckskin and blue jeans, today’s participants ride in the wheel tracks of their ancestors for up to a week. Some of the modern-day pioneers camp under the stars, while others sleep in travel trailers. Flapjacks and bacon, steak, apple cobbler and other trail fare are cooked outdoors by Dennis and Sylvia Jones, owners of Everybody Eats! in El Dorado Hills, Calif.

Retracing the route of the westward migration leads to a richer understanding of history, says Les Davies, 60, a bulldozer operator from Galt, Calif. (pop. 19,472), who has traveled with the Highway 50 Wagon Train every year since 1992.

“Reading about it in a book just isn’t the same,” says Davies, who enjoys the wagon train’s clip-clopping pace. “You see the road, instead of a blur. You see little streams and different types of flowers. You’ve got time to look.”