Bad luck and poor decisions turned the already dangerous trek from Missouri to California into a fatal affair for roughly ...

The disastrous, three-month crossing of Utah and Nevada in 1846 set the stage for one of the Old West’s worst tragedies. Per ...

On Dec. 26, 1846, some members of the ill-fated Donner Party are believed to have turned to cannibalism in order to survive during a Sierra Nevada snowstorm. The information below originally ...

The answer haunted the 87 migrants of the Donner Party, who in 1846 attempted a shortcut to the Western frontier but instead lost 39 of their group to a winter of hunger and fierce blizzards.

The first rescuers reached members of the Donner Party, who had been snowbound in the Sierra Nevada mountains near the California-Nevada border for nearly four months.

Ric Burns wrote, directed and co-produced the film The Donner Party. He describes why the story of the Donner party has had such a lasting resonance, and how it fits into America’s grand ...

On February 19, 1847, the first rescuers reach surviving members of the Donner Party, a group of California-bound emigrants ...

Ric Burns wrote, directed and co-produced the film The Donner Party. He describes why the story of the Donner party has had such a lasting resonance, and how it fits into America’s grand ...