Vintage Conestoga Wagon Picture

While looking around the Web for old pictures, I ran across this shot of a Conestoga wagon with a team hitched up (click on the image to see a larger view):

This picture demonstrates several features of the Conestoga wagon. It clearly shows the "swaybacked" shape of the wagon, which has a floor that has a slight curve with its lowest point in the center. This shape helped to ensure that if the rigors of colonial-era roads jarred the cargo, it would tend to slide towards the center of the wagon, maintaining balance.

Note also that there is no seat on the wagon; the driver is mounted on one of the horses. There is a passenger seated on the side of the wagon, between the wheels.

The term "Conestoga" is sometimes used incorrectly to describe the covered wagons or "prairie schooners" used to traverse the Great Plains as the nation moved west. While some Conestogas went west, most of the prairie schooners were less-expensive flat-bottomed wagons which usually had seating built into the front of the wagon. The craft pictured below is a flat-bottomed covered wagon, not a Conestoga; note the variety of transportation animals in this picture - - the wagon is drawn by a mule and two oxen, and to the left is a rider on a burro: