Contained within the pages of this two volume set are hundreds of amazing true short stories. Relive the adventures and exciting day-to-day experiences of the early pioneers who walked 2,000 miles on the Oregon Trail to the new land of their dreams--Oregon. Imagine the hardships they endured during the six to seven months in the wilderness: deadly diseases, attacks by Indians and wild animals, broken down covered wagons, crippling accidents, choking dust, rutted and muddy mountain trails, rushing rivers, and sudden snowstorms. The threat of their livestock being stolen or stampeded, the lack of suitable grass for their animals, drowning, and the shortage of their own food and clean water supply was a constant worry for these determined pioneers. Death took its toll on these families. Thousands of hastily dug graves lined the trail. It is estimated that fifty-three thousand brave souls had successfully made the adventurous journey by the year 1860. Some even being born along the way. Before the white man brought diseases, alcohol, and firearms, the Indian population numbered in the tens of thousands with nearly one hundred tribes and bands. By 1860, less than two thousand Indians could be found living in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. From late summer into early winter a continuous stream of exhausted, near-starving wagon-train pioneers poured into Oregon and Washington. Remember, that once they arrived they had to build a rustic log cabin, shelter for their livestock, a hole dug for the outhouse, land cleared, the fertile land plowed and prepared for planting crops (that wouldn't be harvested for another year) from precious, secret caches of vegetable seeds, grains, and tubers carefully packed for the journey and hidden in flour bags and bedding. Survival became the primary objective, but they occasionally had a little fun and, of course, romance. These are the stories they told their friends and attentive grandchildren. The stories they lived and shared are the stories we read today. Let us not forget what they did. Gentry W. Cutsforth
About the Author: Gentry Ward Cutsforth entered this world in a family farmhouse near Gervais, Oregon and is enjoying his retirement just twenty-five miles south of Portland in the rural city of Canby, Oregon. His great, great grandparents, William and Hannah Lewis trekked to Oregon in 1853 with their twelve children over the Oregon Trail from Missouri and settled in the fertile Willamette Valley south of the present city of Eugene. After his mother, Lillian Lewis Cutsforth had passed away at the age of 97, Gentry discovered, in her belongings, an old scrapbook in which she had kept clippings of "Oregon or Bust" stories that appeared in the Oregonian newspaper in 1935-36. The precious stories are now preserved for all to read, learn from, and enjoy.