Preface v

I The Land and the People

FrÉmont Crosses the Sierras 1

Colonel John FrÉmont Describes His Expedition 1

The Desert Barrier 5

Sarah Royce Crosses the Desert 5

A Tour on the Prairies 8

Henry Ellsworth Accompanies Washington Irving Across the Plains 8

The Indians 11

Francis Parkman Describes the Dahcotahs 11

The Trappers 13

Isaac Jones Wistar Endures a Hard Winter 13

The Emigrants 16

Francis Parkman Encounters a Wagon Train 16

II The Conquest

To California by Sea 19

Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Visits the Coast of California 20

A Day with the Cow Column 22

Jesse Applegate Herds Cattle on the Oregon Trail 22

The Donner Party Starves 25

Virginia Reed Murphy Survives a Terrible Ordeal 25

Mark Twain Rides the Overland Stage 28

A Memorable Account of Stagecoach Travel from Roughing It 28

The Coming of the Railroad 31

Walt Whitman Writes of the Continental Railroad 31

Samuel Bowles Travels on the Union Pacific 32

III The Mining Frontier

The Discovery of Gold 35

Walter Colton Describes the Effect of the Discovery 36

Eldorado: Bayard Taylor Visits the Mining Camps 37

Mark Twain Doesn’t Strike It Rich 40

IV The Ranching Frontier

The Long Drive 44

Andy Adams Encounters Rustlers 44

V The Farming Frontier

Homesteading in the Dakotas 50

O. E. RÖlvaag Pictures the Norwegian Settlers 50

The Land Rush in Oklahoma 55

Hamilton Wicks Races to Guthrie 55

The picture on page 1, George Catlin’s “Buffalo Hunt on Snow Shoes,” was reprinted through the courtesy of the Thomas Gilcrease Institute of American History and Art. The picture on page 19, “The Meeting of the Rails,” was reprinted through the courtesy of the United States Bureau of Public Roads. The picture on the cover; the picture on page 35, of gold mining in California; the picture on page 44, of Texas cattle being driven to the cattle rendezvous; and the picture on page 50, of plowing on the prairies west of the Mississippi, were reprinted through the courtesy of the Library of Congress.