Even before the Civil War from the Lewis & Clark Expedition to the Mountain Men and trappers, the Indian tribes, the various Gold Rushes, the proposals to build the transcontinental railroad, the Pony Express, building the transcontinental telegraph, water rights. It’s an amazing story.
I really like Irving Stone’s “Men to Match My Mountains: The Monumental Saga of the Winning of America’s Far West.”
I just read “My Sixty Years on the Plains: Trapping, Trading, and Indian Fighting,” a first-person account by W. T. Hamilton.
Remember when schools taught us about “Manifest Destiny”? I imagine those words aren’t used much any more. Or, if they are, they are used in the context of genocide of the natives.
oh, wow, I didn’t realize Irving Stone wrote on the westward push! I love his Michelangelo, Van Gogh and Pissarro books!
I’ll have to run that down, thanks for the heads up!