What happened to all the bodies along the Oregon Trail?

The Long Graveyard of the West

Traveling the Oregon and California Trails was a grueling ordeal of survival. Historians estimate that roughly one in ten emigrants perished during the arduous 2,000-mile journey, turning the historic route into one of the nation's longest continuous graveyards.

Because wagon trains had to maintain a strict pace to beat the treacherous winter snows in the mountains, travelers rarely had the luxury of time or proper burial resources. Most ceremonies were brief and heartbreakingly rushed.

Graves were typically hastily dug right along or even within the path of the trail itself, allowing the heavy iron-rimmed wheels of passing wagons to pack down the loose earth. To protect the deceased from scavengers or grave robbers, survivors usually left the sites unmarked, identifying them with little more than a simple wooden board or letting the landscape reclaim them entirely.