Hard Road West

Director - David Evans

The Beginning
It wasn’t until 1844 that the first small group of wagons were hauled across 2000 miles of wilderness all the way from the Midwest States to California.
Then in 1845, a book was published called the Emigrants Guide to Oregon and California. It was written by a soon to be infamous lawyer named Lansford Hastings. His apparently foolproof approach to reaching California with a wagon encouraged many men to fulfill their dreams and take their families West.
In the Spring of 1846 the Donner and Reed families were preparing to leave their hometown of Springfield, Illinois and cross the wilderness to California. Virginia Reed wrote of their departure…