American West

This article, written in September 1896 by Frederick J. Turner for The Atlantic Magazine, the author argues that westward expansion in the United States has played a role in shaping a uniquely American identity distinct from Europe. He conceived the idea of the "Frontier Thesis" which…

3 men plowing with a team of 14 cattle, 2 Indians in foreground, log cabin and 3 deer in background, wild geese flying overhead.

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Never again can there be a hunting party as gay or as risky as the one Sir William Stewart devised in 1843</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Both grimness and beauty touch this haunting fragment of America’s past</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">Legend says the frontier was “hell on women,” but the ladies claim they had the time of their lives</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> To David Thompson—who died blind, penniless, and bypassed by history—we owe our first knowledge of the American continent’s rugged Northwest</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Medicine was primitive and their knowledge of it limited, but in their hazardous journey to the Pacific, Lewis and Clark lost only one patient</span> </span></p>

<p>William Ashley was largely responsible for the development of that most glittering of the West’s romantic figures, the mountain man—the free trapper who explored the western wilderness at imminent peril of his life. </p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> In a strange message to the intriguing General Wilkinson, the soldier-explorer seemed to predict his own geographical befuddlement and his capture by the Spanish.</span> </span></p>

<p>The shore line of Pyramid Lake, one of the West's great natural wonders, is steadily receding, robbed of the water it needs by a Bureau of Reclamation irrigation project.</p>

<p><span class="deck"> What started as fun and games at spring roundups is now a multi-million-dollar sport called rodeo</span> </p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">The Last Stand of King Grizzly</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">An exploration into the exploration of America</span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> The Story of Some Forgotten Four-Footed Pioneers</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck"> <span class="typestyle"> Before there were Western states, there were public lands—over a billion acres irrevocably reserved for the people of the United States. The Sagebrush Rebels are the most recent in a series of covetous groups bent on “regaining” what was never theirs.</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">For many children who accompanied their parents west across the continent in the 1840s and '50s, the journey was a supreme adventure.</span></p>

<p>Much has changed in Utah since World War II, but, outside of the metropolitan center in the Salt Lake Valley, the addiction to rural simplicity and the idea of home is still strong.</p>

<p><span class="deck"><span class="typestyle">“Why hasn't the stereotype faded away as real cowboys become less and less typical of Western life? Because we can't or won't do without it, obviously.”</span> </span></p>

<p><span class="deck">150 years ago, a sea of grass spread from the Ohio to the Rockies. Now, only bits and pieces of that awesome wilderness remain for the traveler to discover.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">First heard just a century ago at the Chicago fair, Frederick Jackson Turner’s epochal essay on the Western frontier expressed a conflict in the American psyche that still tears at us.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">It belonged to Taos’ most influential family until well into the 20th century, but this unadorned adobe hacienda speaks of the earliest days of Spanish occupation of the Southwest.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Poisoned, ruined, and self-cannibalized, this city is still the grandest of all boomtowns.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">From law officer to murderer to Hollywood consultant: the strange career of a man who became myth</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Our greatest Western novelist deciphers Crazy Horse, Custer, and the hard year of the Little Bighorn</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">Thomas Berger, the author of a classic novel of the American West, speaks about its long-awaited sequel, and about what is to be learned in the challenging territory that lies between history and fiction.</span></p>