01Biography
Ezra Meeker crossed to Oregon in 1852, at 21, with his wife Eliza Jane and their baby son. They settled on Puget Sound, and in the Puyallup Valley he grew rich raising hops until hop aphids ruined his crops in 1892.
In 1906, when he was 75, he yoked an ox named Twist and an untrained steer named Dave to a covered wagon and drove the trail from west to east, asking towns along the way to put up markers. The trek, which lasted into 1908, reached Washington, D.C., where he met President Theodore Roosevelt.
02Why they matter
Retraced the trail by ox team from 1906 to 1908 and campaigned to get it marked, remembered and preserved.
03How they died
He crossed the country again by ox team from 1910 to 1912 and flew over part of the trail in 1924. He fell ill on a trip east in 1928, came home to Washington, and died in Seattle on December 3, 1928, aged 97.
04Legacy
He helped found the Washington State Historical Society in 1891, and the Oregon-California Trails Association carries on his work of marking and protecting the trail today. His family's Meeker Mansion still stands in Puyallup, Washington.