This photo was taken near the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center near Baker City, Oregon. Out there in the middle,  looking westward toward the Blue Mountains, you can see the trail. It’s faint but the ruts are there. What a lonesome place it must have been, what an awesome aspect it remains.

Crooked River Railroad bridge, near Redmond, Oregon under construction sometime around 1909.

This road, in the Blue Mountains of Northeastern Oregon, was probably made recently by man and  machine. Now imagine a road such as this, but imagine it worn down to dust and ruts not by a modern day machine, but by the hooves of oxen and horses,  iron-rimmed wagon wheels with spokes of wood rolling over it, carrying the covered wagons, and the intrepid, footsore immigrants.

A string of freight wagons circa 1900/1910