With roots in the heavy
Conestoga wagon developed for the rough, undeveloped roads and paths of the colonial East, the covered wagon spread west with
American migration. Typical farm wagons were merely covered for westward expansion and heavily relied upon along such travel routes as the
Great Wagon Road,
Mormon Trail,
Santa Fe Trail, and
Oregon Trail, covered wagons carried settlers seeking land, gold, and new futures ever farther west. Once breached, the moderate terrain and fertile land between the Appalachians and the Mississippi was rapidly settled. In the mid-nineteenth century thousands of Americans took a wide variety of farm
wagons across the
Great Plains from developed parts of the Midwest to places in the West such as California, Oregon, Utah, Colorado, and Montana. Overland migrants typically fitted any sturdy wagon with several wooden or metal bows which arched high over the bed. Over this was stretched
canvas or similar sturdy cloth, creating the distinctive covered wagon silhouette. For "overlanders" migrating westward, covered wagons were a more common mode of transportation than wheelbarrow, stagecoach, or train.
Oxen were the most common draft animal for pulling covered wagons, although
mules and
horses were also used. Authors of guidebooks written for emigrants noted that oxen were more reliable, less expensive, and nearly as fast as other options. File:Covered Wagon (7515047658).jpg | Covered wagon at
Pipe Spring National Monument File:Drawing, A Covered Wagon, 1870–80 (CH 18369129).jpg | Covered wagon c. 1870s File:`Drawing, Study, Covered Wagons, possibly 1871 (CH 18369111).jpg | Covered wagons c. 1871
Prairie schooner Prairie schooner is a fanciful name for the covered wagon, drawing on their broad white canvas covers, romantically envisioned as the sails of a ship crossing the sea of
prairie grass. == South Africa Great Trek ==