Mount Diablo State Park, California, USA
© Yuval Helfman/Getty Image
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These are the peaks of Mount Diablo, part of the Diablo mountain range in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. Mount Diablo serves up scenic views, hikes in the surrounding state park as well as compelling stories from American history. On this day in 1841, a group of about 70 people finally reached the West Coast after a gruelling journey of more than 2,000 miles from Missouri, on the newly established California Trail.
The wagons travelled at a painfully slow pace. Covering just 15 miles a day, they were pulled by oxen, horses or mules across difficult terrain including desert areas around Utah’s Great Salt Lake and the steep slopes of the Sierra Nevada mountains. After five months, the wagon train arrived at the ranch of John Marsh near Mount Diablo. The successful journey helped pave the way for expansion to the American West and marked the route for future wagon trains during the California Gold Rush.
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