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# Conestoga Wagon

National Museum of American History

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                      -     Object Details- Description
- Pennsylvania Germans near the Conestoga River first made Conestoga wagons around 1750 to haul freight. By the 1810s, improved roads to Pittsburgh and Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia) stimulated trade between Philadelphia, Baltimore, and settlers near the Ohio River. Wagoners with horse-drawn Conestoga wagons carried supplies and finished goods westward on three- to four-week journeys and returned with flour, whiskey, tobacco, and other products. The Conestoga wagon’s curved shape shifted cargo toward the center and prevented items from sliding on mountain slopes. Railroads replaced Conestoga wagons by the 1850s, but the prairie schooner, a lightweight, flat variant, carried pioneer settlers from Missouri to the West Coast.
- Location
- Currently not on view (right side board; fragment, right side board; left side board; lazy board)
- Currently not on view (bows)
- Currently not on view
- Currently not on view (replica cover)
- Currently not on view (feed box)
- ID Number
- TR.321453
- catalog number
- 321453
- accession number
- 243296
- Object Name
- wagon
- Other Terms
- Road
- Measurements
- overall: 8 ft x 7 ft x 18 ft; 2.4384 m x 2.1336 m x 5.4864 m
- See more items in
- Work and Industry: Transportation, Road
- Transportation
- Road Transportation
- National Museum of American History
- Record ID
- nmah_842999
- Metadata Usage (text)
- CC0
- GUID (Link to Original Record)
- http://n2t.net/ark:/65665/ng49ca746a6-9fd2-704b-e053-15f76fa0b4fa
  Conestoga wagonCC0Creative Commons - No Rights Reserved iconUsage Conditions Apply>download icon>          This image is in the public domain (free of copyright restrictions).  You can copy, modify, and distribute this work without contacting the Smithsonian.  For more information, visit the Smithsonian's Open Access page.        International media Interoperability FrameworkIIIF provides researchers rich metadata and media viewing options for comparison of works across cultural heritage collections. Visit the IIIF page to learn more.View manifestView in Mirador ViewerExpand to view image×                PreviousNext             Footer logo      
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