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This is your seasonal reset. This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories, the show where America is the star. and the American people coming to you from the city where the West begins. Fort Worth, Texas. You're about to hear the most notorious tragedy in the history of America's westward expansion.
The Diner Party Story. Let's take a listen. It is odd. To watch with what feverish ardor Americans pursue prosperity. Ever tormented by the shadowy suspicion that they may not have chosen the shortest route to get it.
They cleave to the things of this world. as if assured that they will never die. And yet rush to snatch any that comes within their reach. as if they expected to stop living before they had relished them. Death steps in in the end.
and stops them. Before they have grown tired of this futile pursuit, of that complete felicity which always escapes them. Alexis de Tocqueville. Me. Mm-hmm.
Thousands of men, women, and children. Riding, walking, Pushing. They're heading for a new life. 2,500 miles away. Germans, Belgians, French, Catholics, Presbyterians.
Mornings. One of the world's great mass migrations begins. The Pioneer Spirit is moving west. In this colossal migration to Oregon and California, America will finally define its character. When the pioneer movement began, Fewer than 20,000 white Americans lived west of the Mississippi River.
Ten years later, A half a million pioneers stepped up into the western wilderness. It's the American dream. Then is now. The people want an already good life. to get better.
They can walk ten miles a day for up to six months straight.
Some go through ten pairs of boots. Each. Half are children. En route. One in five of the women are pregnant.
But these aren't America's poor. Families sell farms. saved for five years to join the Exodus. Risking it all. Here's best-selling author.
Jeanette Walls. I think if there is one episode that encapsulates the American spirit, I think it is probably the Move West. Whip those mules and horses and cross those rivers and cross over those mountains to the unknown and say, I'm leaving everything behind. I'm leaving everything that I know behind to reinvent myself. A wagon and oxen cost a minimum of $5,000 in today's money.
but it buys a complete life support machine. The wagons carry a precious cargo. a thousand pounds of supplies, and a grub steak for their journey. Your entire new life in the West. The pioneering spirit is ingenious.
Essential drinking water captured from rain on the wagon canvas. Even the oxen's gung is not. Fuel for fires. And like today, There are tolls. The Indians charge ten dollars for road, and $100 for river crossings.
in modern money. But the greatest toll of all Human lives In all, 20,000 Americans will die reaching the West. ten graves for every mile. But of all the stories to come out of the West, None has cut more deeply into the imagination of the American people. than the tale of the Donner Party.
This one story of suffering and death will show just how far the pioneers will go to conquer the West. Here's Historian. Joseph King. I think we're Curious, you know, about people who who've gone through terrible ordeals. And certainly the Donner party, you know, eighty-seven people went through uh A crisis the like of which few human beings have ever faced.
And we're curious about that. it can tell us something, I think, about ourselves. about the limits of human experience. 1846. Nine brand new covered wagons rattle out of Springfield, Illinois.
and head west. One of their leaders is 62-year-old George Donner. His wife Tamzin Donner is a schoolteacher. But on the trail, Women must be ready to do anything. Another girl.
Hmm. Welcome to the world. Yeah. These women were made up of the strongest fiber possible. The journey is tough.
But the going is good. Tamzin Donner writes in her journal. I could never have believed we could have traveled so far with so little difficulty. Indeed, if we do not experience anything worse, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started. But as leader of the waggon train, Tamsen's husband George Donner is aware there's one final obstacle to their journey.
the Sierra Nevada. Peaks up to 14,000 feet. Failure to clear the mountain passes before the first snowfalls. The consequences are terrifying. And you've been listening to the story of the Donner Party with some really great backdrop, particularly.
That reading from the Tocqueville, and my goodness, there's no finer writer ever. on the American character and the American people than Tocqueville. and that reading was just powerful. and a great prelude. To the story about this unsettlement, this unsettling nature of Americans.
We're always moving to the next place and the next thing. This pioneering spirit And my goodness, it was there in spades and the people who went west. 20,000 in all would die. heading west. a lot of pain and a lot of sacrifice.
When we come back. What happens to the Donner party? as they head towards their destination. Here are Our American Stories. Lee Habib here, and I'm inviting you to help our American Story celebrate this country's 250th birthday coming soon.
If you want to help inspire countless others to love America like we do, and want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories here about a good and beautiful country. Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to OurAmerican Stories. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and click the donate button. Any amount helps. Go to OurAmericanStories.com and give.
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Let's pick up where we last left off. Nine brand new covered wagons rattle out of Springfield, Illinois. and head west. One of their leaders is 62-year-old George Donner. His wife, Tamzin Donner, is a school teacher.
but on the trail women must be ready to do anything. Another girl. Hmm. Welcome to the world. Uh These women were made up of the strongest fiber possible.
The journey is tough. but the going is good. Tamsin Donner writes in her journal. I could never have believed we could have traveled so far with so little difficulty. Indeed, if we do not experience anything worse, I shall say the trouble is all in getting started.
But as leader of the wagon train, Tamsen's husband George Donner is aware there's one final obstacle to their journey. The Sierra Nevada. Peaks up to 14,000 feet. Failure to clear the mountain passes before the first snowfalls. The consequences are terrifying.
But as the Diner party approaches Utah, George Donner makes a fateful decision. leading a splinter group off of the main party. The group now consists of 87 people. nine families, and sixteen single men. George Donner's two brothers, Jacob and James Reed.
follow with their families. Donner has read one of the many popular New Trail guidebooks by Lansford Hastings. Hastings was trying to garner support from the government for his Hastings cutoff claimed to shave two weeks off the journey time. Lansford Hastings would not publish this immigrant's guide, showing us the best route to California if he did not travel every step of it himself. Problem was He never traveled it himself.
let alone with a trail of wagons. Tomorrow I turn my wagons to the Hastings cutoff.
Now who will follow? George Donner's brother, James Reed, wrote in his diary on July 31st. Yeah, I think it's a very good idea. Hastings cutoff is said to be a saving of 400 miles. We are informed it is a fine level road with plenty of water and grass.
But Donner's information is wrong. In fact, The shortcut adds a hundred miles to the journey. Way should be clear. Let's hope to God. The snow will close the passes in the fall, whether we are through or not.
High in the Sierra Nevada, the Donner Party enters the Truckee Pass. They're only 30 miles from the California plains. Then this happened. It was sundown. The weather was clear.
But a large circle around the moon indicated an approaching storm. John Breen. Supplies are dangerously low. Their water supply is gone. 80 crazed and dehydrated oxen have run away.
21 other oxen are killed with poisoned arrows by Paiute Indians. From the bluffs above the river, They could hear the Paiutes laughing at their plight. Then A broken front axle. Uh The Donner party stops to make repairs near Truckee Lake. Cutting timber for a new axle George Donner gashes his hand.
That night. Five feet of snow falls. Five feet of new snow up there. We've lost the road.
Soon, the drifts are 60 feet deep. Can we get through? No. What? Not anymore.
The pass is completely blocked. The diner party will be stranded for five months. We made a fire. I got something to eat. Ma spread down a buffalo rope.
and set up by the fire. The Indians knew we were doomed. and one of them wrapped his blanket about him. and stood all night under a tree. In just three weeks, they've eaten all their food.
The men, women and children are all dying. Almost every day becomes someone's last. They kill their pack animals. Then they eat charred bones. boiled hides.
Twigs. Bark. Leaves. Dirt? And worse.
Here's George Donner's daughter, Eliza. Even the wind held its breath. As the suggestion was made, that were one to die. The rest might live. Cannibalism Christmas eighteen forty six They eat their first human.
averting their faces from each other. And weeping. Only the two Indians, Luis and Salvador, refused to eat. The bodies are cut up. Flesh labeled.
So people don't eat their own kin. The fourth rescue party brings out almost all survivors. But not all. The winter recorded as the worst ever in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. is making it almost impossible for the rescue teams to operate.
The very last rescue finds a delirious Louis Kiesberg. Alone. Surrounded by the half-eaten dead. No one else was alive. George Downer's body is found.
Skull split open. Brain removed. Tamzin Donner's body is never found. Though a survivor confessed to eating her. Two-thirds of the women and children made it through.
Two-thirds of the men perished. Here's historian David McCullough. Of the eighty-seven men, women, and children in the Donner Party, Forty-six survived. Forty one died. Five women.
14 children. And twenty two men. Counting John Sutter's Indians, Lewis and Salvador. of all the families the Donners suffered the most. All four adults and four of the children died.
The pass is renamed the Donner Pass. a testament to the hardship of the pioneers going west. News of the Donner Party tragedy made headlines around the world. Immigration to California fell off sharply. Then in January of 1848, Gold was discovered in John Sutter's Creek.
By late 1849, More than 100,000 people rushed to California. to dig and sift. Near the streams and canyons where the Donner party had suffered so much. Oh, Mary, I have not written you half of the trouble we have had. But I have wrote you enough.
to let you know what trouble is. But thank God, we are the only family that did not eat human flesh. We have left everything. But I don't care for that. We have got through with our lives.
Don't let this letter dishearten anybody. Remember. Never take no cutoffs. And hurry along as fast as you can. Virginia Reed.
And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And what a story we just heard. with the Donner family itself paying the highest price. for George Donner's mistake. the Hastings cutoff, which was going to save Hundreds of miles, four hundred miles en route.
and in the end only added miles to the route. And then came that dreadful storm. trapped up in those mountains for months. running out of food. and resorting to, well You just heard.
The story of the Downer Party and the story of so many lives lost in the quest to head west. Here on our American stories. Hey, it's Bobby from the Bobby Bones Show. I had an incredible time at this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival and even got the chance to hang out with Diplo and Bailey Zimmerman while I was there. How did Ashes come together, Diplo?
I pulled up real quick. He was about to leave on tour. You're about to jump in your tour bus, and we had like three hours. It was really cool. He literally just like randomly showed up to my house.
I'm like, oh, hey, Diplo, what are you doing? He's like, I have a song that I want to show you. And I was like, okay. You can listen to the full episode out now wherever you get your podcast. And big shout out to my friends at Hyundai for making this possible.
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