One of life’s ironies is that no generation knows what history will make of its doings, or u|jon what symbols the future will seize to sum up the past’s greatest strivings. The bold, pioneering emigrants who led the way across the Great Plains would never have suspected that their symbol would be the humble and utilitarian vehicle in which they made their journey. As the long ride and the log cabin stand for the settling of the first frontier across the Alleghenies, the sturdy covered wagon will forever call to mind the winning of the West.

To be sure, subsequent generations have somewhat distorted the reality. Most modern illustrations of covered wagons, for example, depict the huge and lumbering Conestoga, with its boat shaped bed and sloping sides, its cover overhanging front and rear to give the whole a “swayback” appearance. Originating about 1750 in Pennsylvania, it flourished for a century. Rut it was almost never used beyond the Missouri except by freighters along the Santa Fe Trail. The Concstoga was uselessly heavy for the long pull to Oregon or California, and most of the few that were ill-adviscdly taken on that journey had to be abandoned somewhere along the road. Physically, the emigrants’ vehicles were about the same as the so-called “movers’ wagons” that had taken earlier travelers on shorter, less heroic journeys. To go from one point to another farther west—from Connecticut to Ohio, say, or from Georgia to Alabama—the mover merely packed his wagon, hitched up, and went off over an already established road. Hc passed through a familiar type of country. He bought needed supplies at village stores. If a wagon broke down, or an ox died, or a child took sick, he could find whatever assistance was needed. The journey was seldom of more than a few hundred miles, and was not likely to require more than a month or six weeks.

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