Author Brooks Ragen

 Brooks Geer Ragen, author of the new book

The Meek Cutoff

will speak at the

National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center

on Wednesday, August 21 at 1 p.m.

 

From 2006 to 2011, Ragen and a team of specialists traced the route of the Meek Cutoff through central Oregon, locating wagon ruts, gravesites, and other physical evidence from the most difficult parts of the trail. He will speak about his experiences documenting that route, using surviving journals from members of the 1845 party, maps, and aerial photographs.

The Meek Cutoff from the Oregon Trail was an 1845 event when an estimated 2,500 emigrants left Missouri for the Oregon Territory. About 1,200 emigrants in more than two hundred wagons accepted fur trapper and guide Stephen Meek's offer to lead them on a shortcut. The resulting disaster has become legend, depicted in numerous books and a recent movie.

Those who followed Meek experienced a terrible ordeal. Lost for weeks with little or no water and a shortage of food, the party struggled across the trackless high desert from the Snake River in present-day Idaho to the Deschutes River near Bend, Oregon.

Brooks Geer Ragen is chairman of the board of directors of Manzanita Capital and lives in Seattle, WA. Ragen will be available to sign copies of his book following the talk.