In the 1840s, thousands of Americans journeyed west to California to pursue better lives. One group of settlers became infamous: the Donner Party. After taking an unproven shortcut, their wagon train fell dangerously behind schedule. If they couldn’t cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains before winter came, they risked getting trapped in the snow and starving. B ... Show More
Dec 2023
Encore: Donner Party | Snow and Blood | 2
<p>In November of 1846, an early snowstorm left the Donner Party’s 87 men, women and children trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Freezing and running out of food, they decided to send out a team of men and women on a rescue mission. But soon, the rescuers would find themselv ... Show More
46m 58s
Jan 2024
Encore: Donner Party | In Their Footsteps | 4
In December of 1846, a small group split off from the Donner Party in a desperate attempt to find help. The party, known as the Forlorn Hope, endured the bitter Sierra Nevada winter, trekking roughly 100 miles in 33 days. The route the party took remained unknown for decades. Unt ... Show More
34m 24s
Jul 2023
The Donner Party Turns Deadly
August 4, 1846. A few months into their journey from Illinois to California, a group of pioneers encounters trouble. They’ve just found a note from their guide. It essentially says, “That shortcut I told you to take through the Wasatch Mountains – don’t.” The setback disastrously ... Show More
28m 23s
Jan 2021
Donner Memorial State Park
In the winter of 1846, a group of pioneers became trapped in a prison of ice, forced to perform unspeakable acts to survive. Now, the Donner Party is memorialized in Truckee, California. But the park’s pristine trails hold much more than nature’s abundance… Learn more about your ... Show More
44m 43s
Dec 2019
Best of 2019: The Donner Party Pt. 1
Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: On May 12, 1846, a wagon train set out toward the West Coast of North America. The trip should have taken four months. In the end, it dragged on for a year, exacerbated by bad weather and rapidly dwindling food stores. ... Show More
53m 14s
Jan 2023
California Gold Rush | Battlelines | 3
For white settlers, the Gold Rush offered a chance for fortune, but for California’s Native inhabitants, the sudden hunger for gold spelled disaster. As the numbers of miners grew, they forced Native people off their ancestral lands, often starving or slaughtering them in the pro ... Show More
40m 16s
