If you open up the Oregon Trail video game and press the number 3, you’ll see the default top scores from the game set up by the developers in 1990, ninth on the list with 2052 points, is Ezra Meeker and today we find out why and try to beat his score. This is PNWcast, you’re listening to episode 17. Ezra Meeker was a pioneer that first made the trip to Portland, Oregon from Eddyville, Iowa in 1852. He did so without losing a single person in his party, and subsequently made other trips back and forth on the same trail, creating historical markers for people to visit, to remember the trail and preserve the stories of all it’s travelers. He is known as quite a few things, first mayor of Puyallup, The Hop King of the world, and the champion of the Oregon trail. Ezra Meeker also documented everything, along with authoring books, he has over 17 boxes worth of written material that someone could sort through and learn everything there was to know about Ezra and his life. Someone did, and isin the process of writing a 4 volume biography about him. This is Dennis Larson.

Now, I haven’t played the Oregon trial since elementary school, and I think since I have the guy writing about the champion of the real Oregon trail on the phone, I have a real shot at getting a top score. So I had Dennis play a game with me.