Welcome to American hauntings, the podcast dedicated to the history, hauntings, and the

dark side of American history.

And welcome to our latest season, Woods & Fields, Dark & Wicked, which is hosted and

produced by Cody Beck and written and performed by Troy Taylor, and that's me.

This season has been a long time in the making, dating back to my childhood, where some

of these stories come.

We'll be taking you along with us to America's forest, farms and fields, with tales of horror,

homicide, cults and curses, calamities and cannibalism, massacres, and mysterious

disappearances and more magic mayhem centers and spirits than we've ever offered before.

This is episode number 11, the second in a two-part series within a series, on the legends,

lore, history and hauntings of the Donner Party, the most infamous story in the history of

the American West.

Most people know how this story ends with cannibalism in the mountains, but most don't

know how they ended up snowbound in the mountains, or about the acts of bravery, courage, sacrifice

and incredible horror that took place before most of the Donner Party made it out alive.

We'll change that with the second part of the story, but we do want to warn you.

This episode contains discussions of violence, death and cannibalism that may not be suitable

for all listeners, so if you go ahead with it, you can't say we didn't warn you.

When the first sections of the Donner Party wagon trains reached trucky lake, many of the

settlers did all they could to make it over the mountain past to California, but were driven

back by snow, ice and storms.

They eventually surrendered, returning to the lake where they began building shelters

...