The Oregon Trail

This ambitious series starring the great Rod Taylor was unique and ambitious, but unfortunately was produced at a bad time for the genre.....

Having elements of Wagon Train, mixed with a little of Little House on the Prairie, this finely cast series was interesting and action-filled. Rod Taylor was the rugged, dependable lead and the scripts were well-suited to this era of television.

It is sad that Westerns were on the endangered list around this time ---this one was very good and had great potential.It bit the dust way too soon .

Ever since Pierre Radisson for the British and Lewis&Clark for the Americans, the Oregon territory was the preserve of the fur industry where solitary mountain men trapped beaver pelts to be made into warm hats for easterners. The boundary was more or less unsettled. But before it was in 1846 the USA won the race to flood the area with settlers who wanted to have farms in that rich and untapped soil that never saw a plow.

Rod Taylor starred in this sadly limited western series where he plays a typical Oregon pioneer traveling west with his kids, Andrew Stevens, Tony Becker, and Gina Smiku Hunter and a new wife, Blair Brown in the pilot and Darleen Carr in the series. The usual problems of settling and travel to the frontier were explored thoroughly.

Sadly like many series it did not find its audience. I think it should have been given a better chance with a few more stories. Taylor and the kids were engaging and the stories for the episodes filmed were fine.