Explores the Wild West, including the lay of the land, gold-rush miners, moving west, pioneer life, frontier towns, Native people, and cowboys.

Drawing on fresh archeological evidence, recent research on topics ranging from survival rates to snowfall totals, and heartbreaking letters and diaries made public by descendants a century-and-a-half after the tragedy, Ethan Rarick offers an intimate portrait of the Donner party--ninety pioneers who became stranded in the Sierra Nevada mountains in the winter of 1846-47-- and their unimaginable ordeal.

"Presents sixteen original and never-before-published adventures by some of today’s most visionary writers who have spun wildly offbeat tales of gunmen, lawmen, magic, and weird science. These tales twist the American West into a place of darkness, shadows, sudden death, terror in the night, bold heroism, devious magic, and shocking violence. Each story blazes a new trail through very strange territory--discovering weird science, ancient evil,...

Chronicles the activities of the homesteaders who settled the vast American prairies during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

An introductory history of the Oregon Trail and its significance in opening the west to settlers, including information on the people who opened the Trail, their reasons for going west, modes of transportation, and a description of a typical day on the Trail.

Young Jenna experiences tragedy and loss on her journey west, a vulgar reality at the hands of a missionary, the squalor of a muddy gold rush camp dressed as a boy, and an uncertain future in a sensual, unfamiliar land. Later, educated and refined in the grandeur of an early Spanish rancho, Jenna grows into a desirable woman while two cultures ruthlessly clash after the Mexican War, and California becomes a reckless new state with boom and bust wealth...