Spring Floods and the Oregon Trail

St. Joseph, Missouri, 1840s

Here in the Midwest, we are experiencing serious flooding this spring. St. Joseph, Missouri, one of the prime “jumping off” points for the Oregon Trail, has had worse flooding this year than in any year in its long history. On March 22, 2019, the Missouri River reached 32.11 feet at St. Joseph, which was higher than the prior record set in the devastating floods of 1993.

Other towns along the Missouri River have had flooding this month almost as bad as in the disastrous 1993. A section of a state highway along the river near my home in Kansas City, Missouri, was closed earlier this week due to high water.

Flooding of the Missouri River, Parkville, MO, March 26, 2019

St. Joseph, Missouri, 1852-53

As I saw the news reports about St. Joseph and surrounding towns, I thought of the emigrants who had to cross the Missouri River during springtime in the 1840s and ’50s. Wagons would arrive at St. Joseph on the Missouri side of the river and then had to wait to take ferries across the river. Cattle, oxen, and other animals had to swim.

Think of trying to manage the river crossing during flood season. Delays caused by high water might prove fatal—if the emigrants didn’t reach Oregon before the winter snows, they might perish near the end of their journey.

In 1844, spring floods around St. Joseph were extremely bad, causing delays for travelers. One wagon company traveling that year, headed by Cornelius Gilliam, headed due west from St. Joseph, intending to join the trail north on the Independence route. One website described the Gilliam company’s experience with the rivers as follows:

“During the almost continuous rainfall of the first six weeks [of 1844], small creeks became raging torrents, and larger streams overflowed their banks and covered their flood plains from bluff to bluff. “

The company took a week to cross the Wolf River in what is now northeastern Kansas. They got stuck in a cul-de-sac formed by the South Fork of the Nemaha River and an eastern tributary, probably Harris Creek. Then they had to backtrack to find a better route farther south.

An Army major whose party followed Gilliam later reported the “tortuous winding of his course, sometimes south, sometimes north, and at other times even eastward, to find a suitable passage for his wagons.”

1844 wasn’t the only year that flooding in the area caused difficulties and delays. Two years later, Francis Parkman, who later wrote the famous book The Oregon Trail that inspired many western travelers, wrote in his journal for May 16, 1846, that they had great trouble crossing a deep creek (probably the Wolf River) with their wagons.

River Crossing in Kansas, between 1854 and 1861

The challenge of crossing the Missouri River in the St. Joseph area was one reason for the success of Independence, Missouri, as a jumping off point. Wagons starting in Independence traveled south of the Missouri River and avoided crossing it. These emigrants had to cross many smaller rivers—the Kansas (also known as the Kaw), the Red Vermilion, the Big Vermilion, and several others—but none were as large as the Missouri.

Still, trying to cross these smaller rivers during high water also led to the loss of provisions and animals, delays, and even death. Two of my novels—Lead Me Home and Forever Mine—describe the hazards of river crossings on the Oregon Trail.

Ferrying Wagons Across the Platte, drawing by J. Goldsborough Bruff, 1849

Regardless of their “jumping off” town, everyone traveling to Oregon via the overland route ended up following the Platte River—the Great River Road. The Platte was “a mile wide and an inch deep.” Nevertheless, the Platte River does flood, and crossing the Platte later in the journey could also cause problems for the pioneers.

The emigrants followed rivers as much as possible all along the route to Oregon. They needed water for themselves and for their animals. Although the rivers were lifesavers, they were also treacherous.

When and where have you seen the ravages of flooding?

Flooding of the Missouri River, Parkville, MO (English Landing Park), March 26, 2019