This Day In History: The Donner Party Is Rescued

In the spring of 1846, following a manic Westward trend engulfing the U.S., 89 people, 31 of them from the Reed and Donner families, set out from Springfield, IL, en route to California in search of a better life. Businessman James Reed had organized the venture, hoping to find not only great prosperity, but relief for his wife's various medical ailments.

Estimating that it would take four months to complete the journey, the Donner party, with George Donner as the leader the, by then, two-mile long wagon train, pulled into a trading post in Fort Bridger, Wyoming, in mid-July. Having heard of a new route through the Sierra Nevada Mountains that could shave nearly 300 miles off their trip, the Donner Party then split from the rest of the group and headed for the mountains.

The rest of the wagon train made to their destinations safely. Earlier-than-normal snow in the Sierra Mountains had left up to 6 feet of snow in the newly-discovered pass. As they reached the summit near what is now Donner Lake, they found the route impassable, and had to retreat back down the mountains, finding themselves stuck near the lake, being able to move neither forward nor back.