Indians & Pioneers

Book excerpt: Early writers told of the West and Southwest, they were, with few exceptions, writing of a region east of the Mississippi River. As the country enlarged after the Mexican War and the discovery of gold, the West suddenly expanded to the Pacific, and the Southwest of that period was the region colored by the romantic atmosphere of Spain. The Northwest had its Lewis and Clark, its Astoria, and the Oregon Trail. Historians and novelists have reaped harvests from the fertile soil between Westport and the Pacific with narratives of the covered wagon, the pony express, and the cow-horse.