Meeker was born in Huntsville, Ohio, to Jacob and Phoebe Meeker; his family relocated to Indiana in 1840. Married in 1851 to Eliza Jane Summner, in 1852, with his wife and his newborn son Marian, he headed to the Oregon Territory during the era of the donation land claims, ending up near Puget Sound. They settled permanently in Puyallup in 1862, where Meeker began growing hops for brewing beer.

By 1885 his business had made him wealthy. His wife Eliza Jane convinced him to allow her to build a mansion similar to those she had seen in Europe. Three years and $26,000 later, her mansion was finished. However, in 1891 an infestation of hops aphids destroyed his crops and nearly ruined him. He subsequently tried a number of ventures, including dehydrating fruits and vegetables, working on packaging milk in paper containers, and four largely unsuccessful trips to the Klondike looking for gold. He also wrote a novel about his experiences on the trip west.

Meeker is an important figure in what is now the southern portion of King County and the eastern parts of Pierce County. A statue to Meeker was erected near the Puyallup Library in 1926.

In 1906, at the age of 76, Ezra Meeker decided that the nation had forgotten the Oregon Trail. He assembled a covered wagon and a team of oxen and, stemming the tide of western migration, traveled east over the route, raising money for his trek as he went.

Meeker's rough appearance and his gaudy, painted wagon featuring slogans, advertisements, and a prominent portrait of himself caused some to receive him as a "corn doctor," as he charged admission to see his wagon -- 10 cents for adults, 5 cents for children.

Clearly Meeker was a traveling salesman. He depended upon selling the Oregon Trail as a patriotic pathway of Manifest Destiny as much as he relied upon selling post cards and trinkets to meet expenses. For he sought with his 1906 trek to "kindle in the breasts of the rising generation a flame of patriotic sentiment."

At each town along the way the white-haired, bearded pioneer stopped and made speeches. He became a modern day Johnny Appleseed, traveling the western rangeland planting monuments and sewing seeds of patriotism and nostalgia to mark the Oregon Trail. As the trip progressed, publicity started to build, so that he began to find that towns had raised funds and organized memorials in advance of his arrival.

After reaching the start of the Oregon Trail, he decided to extend his trip all the way to Washington, DC via New York City where he dutifully applied for a permit to drive his team and wagon down Fifth Avenue. The permit was not forthcoming but the stalwart pioneer continued his trek. Everything went fine until Meeker and his wagon reached 161st on Amsterdam Avene where he left his oxen and driver in search of a place to "camp."

Meeker's writings recount that he returned to discover that his driver had been arrested for driving cattle on a New-York street. City officials decided nothing short of an edict would resolve the situation. Yet 30 days later the situation remained unresolved. Officials reportedly looked the other way as Meeker sailed his prairie schooner down Broadway and across the Brooklyn Bridge, leaving behind what must have been a host of startled New Yorkers.

On November 29, 1907, Meeker's frontier troupe reached Washington, where he met with President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt expressed interest in the trail. Congress subsequently considered but did not appropriate a $50,000 request spearheaded by Meeker to mark the trail.