Cholera outbreaks and pandemics
That year, cholera was transmitted along the California, Mormon and Oregon Trails as 6,000 to 12,000 are believed to have died on their way to the California Gold Rush, Utah and Oregon in the cholera years of 1849–1855. It is believed more than 150,000 Americans died during the two pandemics between 1832 and 1849.
Oregon Trail
Another route established by Cornelius Vanderbilt in 1849 was across Nicaragua. The long San Juan River to the Atlantic Ocean helps drain the long Lake Nicaragua. From the western shore of Lake Nicaragua it is only about to the Pacific Ocean. Vanderbilt decided to use paddle wheel steam ships from the U.S. to the San Juan River, small paddle wheel steam launches on the San Juan River, boats across Lake Nicaragua, and a stage coach to the Pacific where connections could be made with another ship headed to California, Oregon, etc.. Vanderbilt, by undercutting fares to the Isthmus of Panama and stealing many of the Panama Railroad workers, managed to attract roughly 30% of the California bound steam boat traffic. All his connections in Nicaragua were never completely worked out before the Panama Railroad's completion in 1855. Civil strife in Nicaragua and a payment to Cornelius Vanderbilt of a "non-compete" payment (bribe) of $56,000 per year killed the whole project in 1855.