Coronado on the Plains
Under the burning-glass July sun they went on across the green, rolling land-ocean under the unbounded sky, past the Great Bend of the Arkansas, left the river, traveled northeast till…
Sod House
Mud Springs was the next home station on the line-a small house made of sod bricks with a wooden roof; the rider could sleep in a lean-to on the side, provided there…
Meaning of the Plains in American Life
"This problem may best be approached through a brief resume. It has been pointed out that the ninety-eighth meridian separates the United States into two equal parts, that the Anglo-Americans…
Women on the Plains
"Since practically this whole study has been devoted to the men, they will receive scant attention here. The Great Plains in the early period was strictly a man's country –…
Horse Stealing
"There was no greater crime than to steal a man's horse, to set him afoot. It was like stealing the sailor's ship or the wings of the bird. There were…
The Code of the West
"In the absence of law and in the social conditions that obtained, men worked out an extra-legal code or custom by which they guided their actions. This custom is often…
The Ocean and the Great Plains
"Much evidence of the immediate effects may be found in the reaction of men who came to the Plains. If we again visualize a migrating host suddenly emerging from the forests on…
Larger Land Units on the Plains
"The next step in the enlargement of the land unit came as the frontier passed beyond the prairie region and entered the Plains proper. Here the influence of aridity was…
Windmills
In the eastern p0rtion of the United States the old-fashioned dug well was common to every home that did not have access to a living spring. It was from eight…
Semi-Arid and Sub-Humid Climate
"There has been a tendency on the part of writers to mix a good deal of sentiment with their history of the West. Because of the peculiar difficulties to be…
Barbed Wire and Windmills
"Barbed wire made the hundred-and-sixty-acre homestead both possible and profitable on the Prairie Plains; it made the homestead possible in the dry plains, but it did not make it profitable.…
End of the Cattle Empire
"In 1862 the Federal Homestead Law was passed; in 1874 the first piece of barbed wire was sold in the United States. These two facts combined to break the even…
Spread of the Cattle Kingdom on the Plains
"In this way the cattle kingdom spread from Texas and utilized the Plains area, which would otherwise have lain idle and useless. Abilene offered the market; the market offered inducement…
The Cattle Kingdom and the Code of the West
"The cattle kingdom was a world within itself, with a culture all its own, which, though of brief duration, was complete and self-satisfying. The cattle kingdom worked out its own…
Camels in the West
"On March 3, 1855, Congress appropriated $30,000, which was placed at the disposal of the Secretary of War for the purpose of introducing camels into the United States for the…