The Donner Party: The Shortcut That Cost Them the Winter (1846)

In July 1846 a wagon train bound for California left the proven road for a shortcut recommended in a guidebook by a man who had never taken a wagon over it. The Hastings Cutoff was supposed to save 350 miles; instead it cost the Donner Party about a month, through the Wasatch Mountains and across eighty miles of salt desert. They reached the last pass of the Sierra Nevada as the snow closed it. This film follows the journey on a map of the period, decision by decision, from Springfield, Illinois to the lake that now bears their name, and through the relief parties that brought 48 of the 87 out alive. Chapters: 0:00 The Sierra Nevada 0:36 Springfield, Illinois 1:17 The guidebook 2:17 A warning 2:47 The Little Sandy 3:17 Fort Bridger 3:47 The note in the sagebrush 4:08 Weber Canyon 4:27 Thirty six miles 4:56 Two days, two nights 5:19 The salt desert 5:46 Pilot Peak 6:06 Charles Stanton 6:48 The knife 7:17 The Truckee River 7:45 The last mistake 8:32 Two camps 8:55 Truckee Lake 9:18 The Forlorn Hope 9:45 What the diary says 10:29 February 1847 11:03 Four reliefs 11:27 The snow 12:21 Virginia Reed 12:44 Donner Pass Sources: Wikipedia, "Donner Party"; Ethan Rarick, Desperate Passage (2008); George R. Stewart, Ordeal by Hunger (1936); Patrick Breen's diary (Bancroft Library); Frémont–Preuss map, 1848 — public domain. Narration is synthesized speech. Music is original. Stories in Sepia is an independent channel; all images are public domain or openly licensed (full list in the project's rights log). #history #donnerparty #oldwest #california #documentary