Far to the north of Texas was another vast region. An enormous, tree-covered wilderness stretching from the looming, rough Rocky's to the flat, smooth Pacific Ocean. The huge territory was surrounded by the Spanish New Mexico, and California to the South and the huge Russian Alaska, to the North.

    In 1804 Meriwether Louis, and William Clark were sent into this nearly unexplored region hoping to blaze a trail for settlers to follow. Unfortunately the path that the two explorers took was too rough for an average traveler. This posed a problem, how could America populate an area if they can't get settlers there? A fur trapper named Jedediah Smith solved the problem with the discovery of a passage through the Rocky Mountains. This flat passage would allow wagons and oxen to travel the path, settlers could finally populate Oregon!

    The first Americans to go live in Oregon were Missionaries! they hoped to spread their word to the Natives and to any unbelieving settlers. These first American inhabitants wrote of the amazing territory, "A pioneers paradise" they called it. They told stories of the sun always shining, and disease being unheard of.  They told love ones that trees were as abundant as the hairs on a dogs back, and that farmland was free for the taking. One joker claimed, "Pigs are running about under the great acorn trees, round and fat, and already cooked, with knives and forks sticking in them so you can cut off a slice whenever you are hungry". These fools tales inspired other pioneers to move west and to Oregon, which was great for the furthering of mankind. Unfortunately the thousands of people moving were said to have a very contagious disease, a very dangerous disease, Oregon Fever.

    Claimed by four nations Oregon was a very diverse land, there were British, Russian, Spanish, and American people living there at the same time! Needless to say this caused many skirmishes. Spain was the first to drop its claim of Oregon, as part of the treaty in which we gained Florida they gained Texas but lost their claim to Oregon. A few years later; in 1846 Russia gave up its claim to  Oregon, they limited their stake to the land above what is now the southern border of Alaska. This left only Britain and the U.S. in the running. For the time being the two Countries agreed to a peaceful "Joint Occupation" of Oregon.

    The Oregon territory also played an important part in the Presidential election of 1844. Democrat James Polk won the election with slogans such as "All of Oregon or None!" and "Fifty-Four Forty or Fight" the 54 40 he was referring to were the latitude lines of the Northern part of the Oregon Territory.  But Polk didn't want Oregon so much that he was willing to go to war with Britain, again. Instead he agreed to a compromise treaty that gave half of Oregon to Britain, and half to the U.S. wasn't that exactly why his opponents didn't win the presidency, he claimed he would go all the way? Needless to say this certainly angered the westerners, but it please all of the Senators from the original 13 colonies and Florida so we kept our side of the deal and gained land without a drop of blood being spilt on either side.