June 5, 1822
On this date Samuel T. Hawken arrived in St. Louis to begin making his famous Hawken's Rifles—the favorite of mountain men and pioneers.
May 22, 1843
The first large wagon train (more than 1,000 people) left Independence for the Oregon Territory.
May 12, 1846
The Donner Party left Independence on this day headed for California. A phony map and bad advice left them stranded in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in winter where they resorted to cannibalism for survival.
May 1, 1852
Martha Jane Cannary Burke was born in Princeton. The infamous frontier woman was known as "Calamity Jane."
February 2, 1682
LaSalle looked across the Mississippi River on this day and saw what is now Missouri. The first European to do so.
A Stagecoach Comes Home
This is the tale of a still-working stagecoach—now fondly named The Journey—that has operated in three different centuries—probably the only stagecoach in this country to do that—and how it is coming home to Missouri.