"Remember the Alamo!," 1836
"At last they were all destroyed by grape, musket shot and the bayonet." A former Catholic mission is the site of a fight to the last man in the Texas War of Independence.
In the days when the buffalo thronged
The Tragic Fate of the Donner Party, 1847
"Snowed hard until twelve o'clock last night; many uneasy for fear we shall all perish with hunger." A group of pioneers abandon their homes in the mid-West with high hopes of finding a better life in California: their dream is shattered by the early snow of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains.
"They granted him a respite of three
hours to prepare for his sudden entrance into eternity." The
Vigilance Committee of a California mining camp attempts
to establish order in a lawless community.
California Gold Rush, 1849
A gold seeker describes his passage
to the gold fields, digging for gold and life in camp.
The Sack of Lawrence, Kansas, 1856 •
"The newspaper offices were the first objects of attack." Five years before the attack on Fort Sumter, the opening shots of the Civil War were fired in a small Kansas town.
Express Rider, 1861
"As I was leaving Horse Creek one
day, a party of fifteen Indians 'jumped me' in a sand ravine
about a mile west of the station." Ride along with a Pony
The Stage, 1861
"Our coach was a swinging and swaying
cage of the most sumptuous description." Mark Twain describes
riding the overland stage.
the Plains, 1865
a wagon train making the westward trek from Missouri to Montana
the Transcontinental Railroad, 1869
It was a milestone in American history,
unifying the country and reducing the travel time from one
coast to the other from months to days. According to this
eyewitness, the celebration in the Utah desert was a blast.
Out with Wild Bill Hickok, 1869
"Don't shoot him in the back; he is
drunk." An eyewitness account of one of the exploits that
made Wild Bill Hickok a legend.
With The Apache, 1872
A soldier's recollections of an attack
on an Apache stronghold in Arizona Territory.
Buffalo Bill Entertains a Russian Grand Duke, 1872
"He fired six shots from this weapon at buffaloes only twenty feet away. . . not one of his bullets took effect." Some of the stars of the Old West, including Buffalo Bill Cody, Colonel George Custer and General Philip Sheridan, introduce a son of the Russian Czar to the buffalo hunt.
Encounter with the Texas
"'Drop that gun!' yelled McNelly.
'Drop it, I say, or I'll kill you.'" The Texas Rangers
bring law and order to a lawless land.
Captured by the Arapaho, 1875
"I and my two companions returned the fire over the backs of the mustangs and ponies which were used as a breastwork. . ." An intrepid traveler through the Old West finds more adventure than he anticipated.
Last Stand, 1876
The destruction of Custer's command
on the banks of the Little Bighorn.
on an Emigrant Train, 1879
"There was a Babel of bewildered men,
women, and children." Travel aboard a train filled with new
immigrants to America as they make their way west.
Death Of Billy The Kid, 1881
Sheriff Pat Garrett describes the
night he confronted Billy the Kid.
A Cowboy in Dodge City, 1882
Texas cowboys in a wide open town.
and Farmers Collide in Nebraska, 1884
"The boys were having great fun at
the expense of the settlers." Cowboys and Homesteaders fight
At Wounded Knee, 1890
The bloody confrontation that ended
the Indian wars.
Dalton Gang's Last Raid, 1892
The story reads like a Hollywood script
- but its all true.
Oklahoma Land Rush, 1893
"...the rifles snapped and the line
broke with a huge, crackling roar." Thousands leave the starting
line in America's largest land rush - and its last.
Cassidy and the Sundance Kid Rob a Train, 1899
Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and
the "Wild Bunch" rob the Union Pacific.
The Hanging of Tom Horn, 1903
"Would you like us to sing, Tom?" Tom Horn, a last vestige of home-spun law and order in the Old West is executed in Wyoming for the mistaken assassination of a fourteen-year-old boy.