Popular Culture Review Vol. 14, No. 1, February 2003 | Page 91

Then and Now:
Bicycling Across History to Oregon
A few summers ago, I headed west to bicycle across U.S. history. After 70
days of pedaling and nearly 7,(K)() miles, my trek from the Atlantic to the Pacific
and back was completed.
What I would like to do, in a modest way, is to compare my late twentieth
century travels with the generic experiences of the 300,(X)0 folks who trekked to
Oregon and California between 1839 and 1869. These ordinary people knew they
were making history and they recorded their adventures in thousands of letters,
diaries, and memoirs.
Tm not sure exactly why I undertook this adventure. Anyway, why did one
need a reason to head west other than “it is there to do, so why not do it?” As an
emigrant writing in 1848 about why people headed west noted: “Some were acti
vated by a mere love of change, more by a spirit of enterprise and adventure, and
a few, I believe, knew not exactly why they were on the road.”' I like even better
what ex-president Teddy Roosevelt declared in 1913 when, at age 57, he went on
an expedition up a previously unexplored river in South America: “It is my last
chance to be a boy.”“ This sounded good to me, although there would be times,
especially while being chased down the road by a large and hungry dog, when Td
ask myself: “What am I doing here?” And more than once someone asked if I was
biking to a psychiatric convention where I would be the main subject of discus
sion. This type of question had historical antecedents. The colorful New York
newspaper editor, Horace Greeley, had suggested, when commenting on settlers
off to Oregon in 1843, that the whole enterprise wore “an aspect of insanity”.^
But a legitimate reason for my biking existed. As a historian of 19''’ century
America, 1 have read, lectured, and written about the push west. And like many
Americans, most of whom are not professional historians, I am fascinated with the
relentless three hundred year rush of people toward the Pacific Ocean.
Especially intriguing is the long reach west from mid-continent at the Mis
souri River, most notably between 1839 when the first organized party of settlers
headed to Oregon and 1869 when the transcontinental railroad was completed.
This is the time when thousands of ordinary folks were “off to see the elephant” —
the slang term for pushing west to Oregon or California. And their life on the trail
tells Americans much about our historic wanderlust. Most of the emigrants on the
overland trail walked alongside their wagons on the 2400 miles from the Missouri
River Jump-offs at Independence or St. Joseph to the Pacific Ocean. From their