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The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last few ...
1882 hand-colored map depicting the western half of the continental United States. This timeline of the American Old West is a chronologically ordered list of events significant to the development of the American West as a region of the continental United States. The term "American Old West" refers to a vast geographical area and lengthy time ...
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- Feral Camels Once Roamed The Plains of Texas.
- Thanks to A Winchester Rifle, We Know Billy The Kid Wasn’T left-handed.
- One Pivotal Civil War Battle Was Fought in An Unlikely Place: New Mexico.
- Forget Jamestown. The Oldest Settlement in The United States Is Acoma Pueblo.
- The First Film Cowboy Wasn’T A Cowboy at all.
- Jesse James Was Larger Than Life—So Much That His Body Required Two Graves.
One of the wackier ideas in American history, the U.S. Camel Corps was established in 1856 at Camp Verde, Texas. Reasoning that the arid southwest was a lot like the deserts of Egypt, the Army imported 66 camels from the Middle East. Despite the animals’ more objectionable qualities—they spat, regurgitated and defied orders—the experiment was gener...
A famous tintype photograph of Billy the Kid shows him with a gun belt on his left side. For years, the portrait fueled assumptions that the outlaw, born William Bonney, was left-handed. However, most tintype cameras produced a negative image that appeared positive once it was developed, meaning the end result was the reverse of reality. There’s an...
In a bold move designed to fill rebel coffers with Cripple Creek gold, Confederate General Henry Hopkins Sibley invaded New Mexico Territory from the south in early 1862, believing he could march right up the Rio Grande and take Colorado. Unbeknownst to Sibley, however, the First Regiment of Volunteers in Colorado caught wind of the scheme and marc...
It’s no revelation that Native American settlements predate European ones, but it may surprise some people that Acoma Pueblo, west of Albuquerque, New Mexico, has been continuously occupied since the 12th century. The Acoma still inhabit their “Sky City,” a settlement of about 4,800 people that sits atop a 365-foot high mesa. Traditionally hunters ...
Widely credited with inventing the Western film genre, Broncho Billy Anderson, star of 1903’s “The Great Train Robbery,” was born Maxwell Henry Aronson in 1880, the son of a traveling Arkansas salesman. As soon as Aronson was old enough, he hightailed it to New York City, where he produced or acted in literally hundreds of films. Cast somewhat by c...
Few outlaws were as notorious during their own lifetimes as Jesse James. Though he lived a quiet existence in Kearney, Missouri, after his bank robbing days were over, old friends—and enemies—never forgot him. After Jesse was murdered, he was buried in the front yard of his farm to thwart grave robbers. As the years passed and his enemies died off,...
Adventures in the American West. Produced by Kathy Alexander, narrated by Dave Alexander. The Old West, often referred to as the Wild West, encompasses the period after the Civil War, the rest of the 1800s, and the early part of the 20th century up to 1912, when the last mainland states entered the Union. During this time, thousands of pioneers ...
The Old West Although the “Wild West” was generally defined from 1865 to 1895, many events shaped the American West as a region from ancient times up to 1916. 50,000-5000 B.C. – Paleo-Siberians migrated to North America from Asia via the Bering Strait land bridge.
Lost Treasures of the American Old West. The American Old West was a wild place. It was an era full of cowboys, gunslingers, outlaws, and wars. The European settlers driving the expansion into the west faced many hardships. They had to force their way to the Pacific Ocean by driving the Native Americans away from their lands.
