The Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar was a fifty-cent piece struck intermittently by the United States Bureau of the Mint between 1926 and 1939. The coin was designed by Laura Gardin Fraser and James Earle Fraser. Laura Gardin Fraser also designed the 1925 Fort Vancouver Centennial half dollar. The Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar commemorates those who traveled the Oregon Trail and settled the Pacific Coast of the United States in the mid-19th century.
The San Francisco Mint only produced 3,004 1939-S Oregon Trail Memorial half dollars that year making the coin extremely rare. 1939 was the last year that the Oregon Trail Memorial half dollar was minted.