Irene D. Paden, The Wake of the Prairie Schooner (1944) For nine summers during the 1930s and early '40s, Paden and her husband (who was superintendent of schools in Alameda…

George R. Stewart, The California Trail (McGraw Hill, 1962) This book details the story of the California Trail from 1841 to 1849. Each chapter is a year-by-year survey of the…

LeRoy Hafen, The Overland Mail: 1849-1869 (Originally published 1926) Hafen's book, which grew out of his doctoral dissertation, is the pioneering work on overland mail in the trans-Mississippi west. This…

W. Turentine Jackson, Wagon Roads West: A Study of Federal Surveys and Construction in the Trans-Mississippi West, 1846–1869 (University of California Press, 1952) This book is a meticulous, exhaustive study…

John D. Unruh, Jr., The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 (Univ. of Illinois, 1979) This book grew out of Unruh's doctoral dissertation, apparently ten years…

Ralph Moody, The Old Trails West (Promontory Press 1963) This book details the various trails used across the western U.S., beginning with the Spanish missions in the southwest, spreading up…