Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

Westward migration along the Oregon Trail was booming throughout the mid 1800s. The initial footpath had been carved and planned out by fur traders and trappers, but was eventually widened to accommodate wagons, in which families, settlers, miners, and all sorts of wanderers could traverse with all their belongings in tow across nearly 2,000 miles of land, creeks, and mountain terrain. Stretching from Independence, Missouri all the way to Olympia, Washington, the trail and its many offshoots became the thoroughfare to the west coast, and even today, is utilized by car on major interstate highways built right through some of the same towns. "Line Of Original Emigration To The Pacific Northwest Commonly Known As The Old Oregon Trail," map, 1907; Ezra Meeker, The Ox Team or the Old Oregon Trail 1852-1906 (1907); database with images, Wikimedia (https://commons.wikimedia.org : accessed 10 Feb 2024); courtesy of the University of Texas Libraries, The University of Texas at Austi...

  JULY 11, 2021 My great grandfather, George LeeRoy Foltz (1880 - 1923), was certainly his father’s son! The pair of them could not be tied down to a single location for very long; the proof being in the evidence of their movements left behind in photos and written documents. George LeeRoy Foltz, postcard to brother Walter in Kansas, 3 Oct 1912, Ft. Rock, Oregon. Week 28: Transportation After growing up and starting his family in Marshall County, Kansas, George filed a homestead application in Fort Rock, Lake County, Oregon with the federal government, intent on securing his own property out on the west coast of the United States. They left behind their home in Vliets, took up residence on the new piece of land in June of 1909, and finished building a home on the property by the 16th of that month. The Albany Citizen, “Fort Rock Country,” Albany, Oregon, 20 May 1910. But once George got his dry farming techniques up and running at home, he was already on to his next venture – which...