Say you were a family of four, Husband, wife, two kids 7-9, in St. Louis. You own a suitable wagon and draft animals. You desire to make the overland trek to California.
I’m wondering how much cash money you’d need to have on hand to take the trip? You’d need some supplies including food, utensils etc.
Would $500 do it? Maybe $200. Even $200 was a reasonable amount of cash in 1850.
Just curious as to what was needed at the time.
You question inspired me to go look up the commodity prices in the old Oregon Trail computer game, and in my research I cam across this article where a historian discusses how accurate the game was:
https://www.sfgate.com/game/article/Is-Oregon-Trail-game-historically-accurate-14287886.php
Relevant to your question:
“If people already had most of their supplies, they could afford that and still be able to survive on just a few hundred dollars – probably four or five thousand dollars in today’s currency,” Kreutzer said.
I would assume since the distance to California was a bit shorter than to Oregon, one could get by on a little less.