History-Oregon Trail?

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What did they take with them when people traveled the Oregon Trail?

Who were the first people and where did they go?

What did they do once they arrived?

Why were some groups more successful then others?

This questions are all about the Oregon Trail. Please help or suggest sites that will help me!
 
People took lots of things with them. Sentimental attachments are hard to break, but harder to haul 3,000 miles, so many items were left along the trail.

The Mormons were early travelers along the trail, though they took a detour and went to Utah, rather than Oregon. Most people started out for Oregon, since California was known to be Spanish and they would not be welcome there. After the war with Mexico, it changed and people went to both places.

They planted crops, built homes, missions and towns, and started thinking about adding this British territory to the USA.

It's 80% luck, the other half is judgement, to paraphrase Yogi Berra. It depends on the time of year, the weather, your means of locomotion--oxen are slower than horses, but they'll eat stubble, horses won't, there were short cuts available, but if you took the wrong one, you could be in big trouble. For instance, the Donner party took Sublette's cutoff and look what happened to them.

I am attaching the best source of information I know, the diary of a young girl who made the trip in 1844.
 
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/places/trails_ter/oregon.htm
I saw at least 50 web sites in Google. I started to copy them and paste them here but it's just as wasy for you to go look at them.
 
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