My dad, Al Spencer loved the Oregon Trail. When we would take trips, and come across an Oregon Trail marker, we always had to stop and read all about it. My sisters, Cheryl Masterson, Caryl Reed, Alena Stevens, and Allyn Hadlock, and I, practically groaned every time one of those “dreaded” Oregon Trail markers came into view. Dad would call out “hiss-tor-ickle marker” to emphasize the significance of that next marker. Of course, looking back now, those markers weren’t that bad, but at the time…basically our childhood days, history held little significance in our minds. We found it boring and thought of it has “stupid memory work” with all its names and dates…and of course, its endless tests in school. These days I feel differently about history, but I still wouldn’t stop at those markers…sorry Dad. Actually, my dad would have really liked Ezra Meeker, I think. Meeker went west on the Oregon Trail as young pioneer who first traveled the Oregon Trail by ox-drawn wagon in 1852. Fifty years later, still very much infatuated with the Oregon Trail, Meeker would make the trip again and again, repeatedly retracing the trip of his youth, and worked to memorialize the Oregon Trail. So, he’s the guy my sisters and I have to thank for those many boring stops on our vacations over the years, haha!!
Meeker dedicated the last twenty-five years of his life to saving the trail for future generations. This man was as serious about the Oregon Trail as my dad. His crusade introduced tens of thousands of people to the history of the trail and the need to preserve it. Meeker, as president of the Washington State Historical Society in 1903, led efforts to record the stories of trail pioneers. In 1905 he published his personal trail story, Pioneer Reminiscences, and drove an ox team to Portland, Oregon for the Lewis and Clark Exposition.
In 1906 – 1908, he traveled from Washington State to Washington DC, following the trail as he went. In DC, he met with President Theodore Roosevelt. As he traveled, Meeker placed markers along the trail, and began the national discussion on the fate of the trail that continues to this day. Meeker returned to the trail campaigning in the Midwest and as far south as Texas in 1910. He exhibited his ox team at the Panama Pacific Exposition in 1915 and made another trek over the trail in 1916 in a Pathfinder automobile. Then, in 1924 Meeker, in the ultimate “trek” flew over the trail in an Army biplane to meet with President Coolidge to urge him to join the trail promotion effort. In 1926 he and others founded the Oregon Trail Memorial Association, which was the predecessor of the Oregon-California Trails Association (OCTA). His last trip over the trail was in a touring car at the age of 96. Next, Meeker converted a Model A Ford, which he planned to use for his 1928 trip, but unfortunately, his health prevented that trip. At the time of Meeker’s death, he was living in Seattle, Washington, where he died of pneumonia on December 3, 1928, just a month short of his 98th birthday. He was buried in Woodbine Cemetery in Puyallup, beside his wife, Eliza Jane. Their gravestone reads, “They came
this way to win and hold the West.”
Meeker couldn’t stop thinking about and working to preserve the Oregon Trail. It was like the trail was in his blood, and maybe it was. After all, he spent enough time on it. Yes, I think my dad would have liked Ezra Meeker. In 1930 President Hoover issued a proclamation which commended both the heroism of the Oregon Trail pioneers and Meeker “for carrying over into our day the personal memory of this historic epoch.”
One Response to For Love Of The Oregon Trail