UNITED STATES

UNITED STATES.

150th anniversary of the Oregon Trail, 1843-1993.
Map of the historic trail.
Stamp issued on 12.02.1993.
Face value: 29 cents of US dollar.
Printing: Offset lithography and recess.
Print: 110,000,000 copies.
Size: 25 x 40 mm.

Catalogues
- Michel No. 2343.
- Scott No. 2747.
- StampWorld No. 2466.
- Stanley Gibbons No. 2776.
- Yvert et Tellier No. 2138.

The Oregon Trail was a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) east-west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. From the early to mid-1830s (and particularly through the years 1846–1869) the Oregon Trail and its many offshoots were used by about 400,000 settlers, farmers, miners, ranchers, missioners and business owners and their families. Use of the trail declined as the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. The first overland route through what is now the United States was mapped by the Lewis and Clark Expedition between 1804 and 1806. Lewis and Clark initially believed they had found a practical overland route to the west coast; however, the two passes they encountered through the Rocky Mountains proved too difficult for the prairie schooner cars to traverse.