This 1906 photo shows Ezra Meeker dedicating an Oregon Trail marker.
Chronicle columnist Julie McDonald writes: The photo showed Meeker with a 1,430-pound farm wagon he used to retrace the Oregon Trail in 1906 all the way to New York. The wagon, which he said is stored at the Washington State Historical Society, was exactly like those that carried thousands of pioneers across the country to Oregon Territory in the mid-19th century — typically 10 feet long, 4 feet wide and 4 feet high with floors sloped toward the center so cargo would lean inward as the wagon rocked.
On the left in the photo stands 7-year-old Twist, an “ox” — defined as a neutered male bovine of any breed over four years of age trained to work. On the right is Dave, a 5-year-old steer purchased only weeks earlier from a Tacoma stockyard.
During a stop in Tenino, Meeker wrote in his journal, “Dave is still not an oxen.”
Each beast weighed about 1,400 pounds. Today, more than a century later, Egan said, oxen weigh about 3,000 pounds each.
Dave had an attitude and kicked Meeker so hard at Baker City, Oregon, he was lame for a month, Egan said. In fact, Meeker’s favorite companion, a Scotch collie named Jim, hated Dave, and at one point, the steer kicked the dog off a bridge.
A boy plays in the shadow of the Berlin Wall while soldiers stand guard on the other side. Berlin Wall, Bernauer Strasse, West Berlin 1967.
It will take a LOT of fancy caulk work to fix that non master carpenter's work!
