Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Donner Party descendants to gather for anniversary

They'll be among more than 8,000 people expected to attend California Trail Days '96 and the Donner Party Sesquicentennial, which will run Thursday through Monday here and in Reno.

"We have had a fantastic response from the descendants and public," said event coordinator Frankye Craig. "It shows there's still a lot of interest in the Donner Party."

Dozens of members of the covered-wagon party starved to death and others resorted to cannibalism to survive when stranded in the Sierra near Truckee over the winter of 1846-47. Forty-two of the 89 members died.

Direct descendants of the party's Donner, Reed, Breen, Graves and Murphy families will attend the event. Descendants of members Doris Wolfinger, Noah James and Pat Dolan also will show up.

The event will feature a Graves family reunion Friday and a Breen reunion Saturday. Family historians will talk about the families and what happened to survivors. More than 100 family members will attend each reunion.

The gathering also will feature tours of Donner Party campsites and the Emigrant Trail, and presentations by descendants of party leaders James Reed and George Donner.

A conference will include a panel discussion on why more women survived the Donner tragedy than men, and a talk by one of the world's leading experts on cannibalism.

A variety of other events, ranging from wagon rides to a Chautauqua, also will be held.

Meanwhile, another major event marking the Donner Party tragedy's 150th anniversary will be held this week in Elko.

More than 800 people from across the country are expected to attend the Oregon-California Trail Association's annual convention Wednesday through Sunday.

The gathering will feature tours of the Hastings Cutoff, the "shortcut" that led to the Donner Party's demise, and the main California Trail in Elko County.

"We have probably more pristine traces of trail than anywhere else in the entire system," said convention co-chairman Paul Sawyer, a noted trail authority.

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