A Pathfinder’s Trail

Thousands of overland immigrants to Oregon and California from 1845 to 1849 followed a path first blazed by John C. Fremont. After Congress named Fremont to head the survey of the Oregon Trail, Fremont left Washington, D.C., on May 2, 1842, and traveled to St. Louis, Missouri, where he spent nearly three weeks at Chouteau’s Landing, equipping a party that included German cartographer and surveyor Charles Preuss and Kit Carson, the primary guide as Fremont explored the West. This first explo