The Old Oregon Trail

The Old Oregon Trail. , The Oregon Trail, stretching from Missouri to the Pacific, served as the most important route for settlers traveling west. As many as 1600 wagons a day rumbled over the famous route. The northwestern most extension of the Oregon Trail was the Cowlitz Trail, which led from the Columbia River to Puget Sound. The Village of Claquato was located on an adjunct of the Cowlitz Trail known as the Old Military Road, which was an important wagon road southwest Washington. , In 1852, Ezra Meeker, his wife Eliza, and infant son journeyed over the Oregon Trail in a covered wagon pulled by oxen. The Meeker Family eventually settled in Puyallup, Washington. In later years, Meeker feared that the nation was forgetting the history of the Oregon Trail and the thousands of heroic pioneers who traveled it. So in 1905, when Meeker was 75 years old, he took a wagon and a span of oxen back across the trail to commemorate its part in settling the American West. , Along the route from Puyallup to Missouri, Meeker asked 42 towns to erect stone monuments marking the trail’s location. Several towns erected markers during Meeker’s original trip. Other towns had to wait ten years, until the Daughters and Sons of the American Revolution provided funds to erect markers. Of the 42 towns asked to install monuments, Claquato was one of three that did not fulfill its promise. , This marker is hereby dedicated in Claquato on April 29, 2006, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Ezra Meeker’s historic trip and to fulfill a promise of a century ago.