A Final Rest: For One Pioneer Woman, the Oregon Trail Ended Here

For One Pioneer Woman, the Oregon Trail Ended Here. In 1924 engineers constructing the first Mt. Hood Highway discovered a gravesite here. The grave was marked with an old wooden wagon tongue buried beneath decades of overgrown brush. When they dug up the site, they found the remains of an emigrant woman. After reburial, a cross was placed in honor of this unnamed pioneer.

The son of Steven Coalman (former Barlow Toll Road Superintendent) recalls: "My father remembered meeting a man who had just buried his wife. He buried her in a wagon box made of the wagon, and made a crude fence around the grave. She had been very sick, and they had camped there several days before she died. The man had two small children, a boy and a girl, both under five years of age."

As you travel in comfort over the formidable Cascade Range, think about the hardships and heartaches pioneer families endured in pursuit of "the promised land."

Would you have been so bold? . This historical marker was erected by Mt. Hood National Forest, U.S. Forest Service. It is Near Government Camp in Clackamas County Oregon