BLM Land
"It was immediately clear that after nearly a thousand miles of travel across the trail we had found the one asshole in a hundred who lacked the hospitality we had found everywhere…
Government Road Building
"In places, the Lander Cutoff was a steep up-and-down ride, but the route offered cooler, high terrain and plentiful water, an advantage over the scorching desert of the main ruts to the south.…
Territories
"In the space of twenty years, 1848-1868, twelve huge territories were created, and, as the process went on, each territory was changed, divided, and subdivided ad infinitum. . . .…
Brief History of Mormon Settlement in Utah
"At the time the Mormons chose their new homeland on the Great Salt Lake and settled down to farm, their colony was in Mexican domain several hundred miles beyond the…
Fremont’s First Expedition
"As a stunt to demonstrate the absolute safety of the Oregon Trail, Benton conceived the idea of sending his twelve-year-old son as far as the Continental Divide, with Frémont to…
Wagon Road to California
"[S]ome [rumors] that there was a movement afoot [in California] for outright secession and forming a separate nation.There was no possibility of breaking the transcontinental railway deadlock, but in December,…
The West’s Contribution to the Union
"[Abraham Lincoln] viewed the region and its mineral wealth as vital to the Union cause. It was a keen insight, and during the war California’s mines contributed $185 million to…
Senator Gwin’s Motivation
"It was sometime in December 1859 or early January 1860 that William H. Russell, one of the partners in the firm Russell, Majors and [sic] Waddell, and California Senator William M.…
A Dramatic Gesture
"The Post Office Department's greatest prize—the $600,000-a-year contract held by John Butterfield's rival California mail operation—still had nearly five years to run. But Russell sensed that opposition to Butterfield's 'ox…
The Politics of Mail Service to California
"Like every political question in America in the late 1850s, mail service to California was eclipsed by the slavery question. Although Americans in California, Oregon, and Utah repeatedly pleaded for…
Postal Subsidies Reduced Under Holt
"[Postmaster] Brown's successor—the former commissioner of patents, Judge Joseph Holt of Kentucky—was a southerner like Brown but Brown's antithesis in terms of policy: Holt believed the Post Office should support…
Butterfield and the Ox Bow Route
"In September 1857, [Postmaster] Brown settled on a route [through the south] . . . that was nearly 2,800 miles long—more than 800 miles longer than the central overland route…