AUGUST 3 — 1846 Donner Party gets first delay; 1811 Happy Birthday Elisha Graves Otis (improved elevator); 1949 NBA is formed; 1963 Beach Boys release ‘Surfer Girl’
AUGUST 3
1846 – Donner party gets its first delay. That’s not good. The Donner party was a group of 89 men, women and children who wanted to head out west to California. It was led by James Reed, a businessman who read the book An Emigrants guide to Oregon and California by Lankford Hastings. The book described a new route that would save a few hundred miles to those who wanted to head west.
Problem was, Hastings never actually took that route before he wrote the book. He just pictured in his head it might work. Reed had a two story wagon, complete with a kitchen stove and twelve oxen to pull it. The group left Independence Missouri on April 16th, ironically enough the same day Hastings was headed east to check out the route he had written about. In Ft. Laramie in present day Wyoming, Reed and the Donner Party ran into an old buddy of Reeds named
James Cayman, who had just taken the new route as described in the book and told Reed the route is barely passable b y foot, and that to get to California they should take the northern route which was much safer and easier. For some reason Reed didn’t listen, and they continued down the new route. On August 3rd, they reached the head of the canyon at the Wasatch Mountains and found a note from Hastings saying do not take this route. Guess what, it was impassable. Wagons had to be abandoned, opens started running away, and tempers were flaring against Reed.
The trail just got more and more difficult, and on October 28 the snow began to fall, blocking the Sierra Nevada Mountain summits. They spent months in the frozen middle of nowhere and eventually began resorting to eating the dead human bodies that were dying of malnutrition. In the end, only 45 or the original 89 emigrants made it to California the following April. At least seven were cannibalized. Donner Lake in Truckee, California, is named after the party.
1811 – Happy birthday Elisha Graves Otis. He invented a gadget that would prevent elevators from falling should the hoisting cable fails. We like this guy.
1949 – The Basketball Association of America, BAA and the National Basketball League, NBL, form to create the NBA. There were 17 teams in the league, but lack of interest in the game led to teams diminishing to a total of eight teams. So the league brought something new to the game: the 24-second shot clock. This forced a lot more hustle into the game and made it much more fun to watch. Today of course, the NBA has 30 teams and attracts players as well as fans from all around the world. Yet another great American invention: the NBA. Like a boss!
1958—The USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear powered submarine becomes the first undersea voyage to the North Pole on August 3rd. Hi Santa, don’t mind us, just passing through. Just keep making my toys please. The Nautilus enjoyed a career of nearly 25 years and 500,000- miles traveled.
1963–The Beach Boys release “Surfer Girl”, which would climb to #7 in the US by September. It was the first song Brian Wilson ever wrote and the first one he produced. Its flip-side, “Little Deuce Coupe”, proved to be The Beach Boys’ most successful B-side, reaching #15 in America and becoming a hot rod classic.
AUGUST 3 – 1846 Donner party gets first delay; 1811 HB Elisha Graves, patented safeguard for elevators; 1949 NBA is formed; 1958 USS Nautilus sub goes to North Pole; 1963 Beach Boys release Surfer Girl