jcpatten Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> That stage road looks really narrow, almost too
> narrow for a stage coach or conestoga wagon.
Conestogas were big freight hauling wagons used back East in the early 19th century on really well built roads, for example The National Road, and never seen in the West before poorly researched movies and tv shows. Covered Wagon ala Oregon Trail were just regular, and much smaller, farm wagons with a very few modifications. Oh, and they were mostly pulled by ox teams and people walked alongside, rarely riding since the wagons were almost always seriously overloaded.
The day of the Conestoga was long over before the Williams Pass road was ever built, by that time any place that had enough traffic to justify building a road good enough for one already had, or quickly got, a railroad.
A Conestoga on a Western trail/road is as out of place as a Big Boy in Silverton would be. Never stopped Hollywood though.
hank
ps Yeah, it's a pet peeve.