66: Warnings and Lies: The Deception of the Donner Party (Part 2)

The Donner Party was at a crossroads. They’d made good progress on their journey to California, but they were still about a week behind schedule. Lansford Hasting’s new shortcut appealed to the worried group. But an experienced explorer warned them against it. The man told them that the shortcut might kill them.

They didn’t listen.

Remember, kids, history hoes always cite their sources! For this episode, Kristin pulled from:
“The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride,” by Daniel James Brown
“The Best Land Under Heaven: The Donner Party in the Age of Manifest Destiny,” by Michael Wallis
The documentary, “The Donner Party”
“How the Donner Party was doomed by a disastrous shortcut,” by Erin Blakemore for History.com
“Lansford Hastings, the Donner Party, and the Civil War,” by Elizabeth Eisenstark for the National Museum of Civil War Medicine
“The deadly temptation of the Oregon Trail shortcut,” by Laura Kiniry for atlasobscura.com

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