Platte River Road Narratives

Author : Merrill J. Mattes
Publisher : Urbana : University of Illinois Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 656 pages
Book Rating : 4.07/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Platte River Road Narratives written by Merrill J. Mattes and published by Urbana : University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 1988 with total page 656 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This massive annotated bibliography of all known significant eyewitness accounts of 19th-century central overland fills a conspicuous gap in historical literature, and will greatly accelerate research, writing, and collecting in this important phase of western. Platte River Road Narratives includes not only all identifiable overland accounts, but also a far greater number of all identifiable in manuscript form only. The format for over 2,000 entries allows for identification of the author, the form of the passage, overland trip, and Matte's authoritative commentary and evaluation, as well as identification of the repository of the source material.

Author : Rosemary Gudmundson Palmer
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 344 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Children's Voices from the Trail written by Rosemary Gudmundson Palmer and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a century the history of the American Frontier, particularly the West, has been the speciality of the Arthur H. Clark Company. We publish new books, both interpretive and documentary, in small, high-quality editions for the collector, researcher, and library.

Author : Rick Bass
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1948924056
Total Pages : 168 pages
Book Rating : 4.54/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Platte River written by Rick Bass and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 168 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Available again, an acclaimed collection from an American master that USA Today called “Powerful . . . lyrical, vivid, engaging.” Originally published twenty-five years ago, Platte River is one of the early collections that established Rick Bass’s reputation as a master of the short form and one of the best writers of his generation. It contains three novellas of contemporary America, each informed by the mysteries of nature and the heart. Set along borders, both physical and immaterial, all of the novellas combine a spare but radiant naturalism with an outsize aspiration to folklore or myth. In the title story, a former pro linebacker living a simple, isolated life in the Canadian woods just across the border from Montana struggles with his artist girlfriend’s desire to escape. Invited by his best friend from their college football days to give a talk at the school where the friend now teaches, he flies to northern Michigan. In the class the next morning, after a night fishing party on the Platte River, what he learns brings acceptance, and a kind of salvation. In “Mahatma Joe,” a despairing evangelist living in a valley that was once so wild the people would go naked when the Chinook winds blew, announcing winter’s end, throws his fervor into planting a garden along the river, bringing purpose to the young woman who had camped there. “Field Events,” the most comic of the stories, begins when two athlete brothers spy an enormous, muscled man swimming in the river, hauling a canoe loaded with cast iron. Their plan to train him in the discus meets with complications, when the giant and their older sister find in each other the missing part that neither could articulate.

Author : Merrill J. Mattes
Publisher : Bison Books
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 648 pages
Book Rating : 4.97/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Platte River Road written by Merrill J. Mattes and published by Bison Books. This book was released on 1987 with total page 648 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Great Platte River Road through Nebraska and Wyoming was the grand corridor of America's westward expansion. A number of famous trails converged in the broad valley of the Platte, forming a kind of primitive superhighway for the great covered wagon migration from 1841 to 1866. From jumping-off places along the Missouri River--notably the Omaha-Council Bluffs, St. Joseph, and Kansas City areas--the emigrant throngs came together at Fort Kearny, Nebraska. Although they continued on to South Pass, Wyoming, and beyond, this book focuses on the feeder mutes and the more than three hundred miles between Fort Kearny and Fort Laramie. The Great Platte River Road looks at border towns, trail routes, river crossings, stage stations, military posts, and such landmarks as Chimney Rock and Scott's Bluff. It goes far beyond geography and Indian encounters in revealing cultural aspects of the great migration: food, dress, equipment, organization, camping, traffic patterns, sex ratios, morals, manners, religion, crime, accidents, disease, death, and burial customs.

Author : Michael L. Tate
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806160233
Total Pages : 263 pages
Book Rating : 4.38/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Medicine Road, Part 3 written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2017-09-21 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the years after the discovery of gold in California, thousands of fortune seekers made their way west, joining the greatest mass migration in American history. The gold fields were only one destination, as emigrants pushed across the Great Plains, Great Basin, and Oregon Territory in unprecedented numbers, following the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails to the verdant Willamette Valley or Mormon settlements in the Salt Lake Valley. “Seeing the Elephant” they often called the journey, referring to the wondrous sights and endless adventures met along the way. The firsthand accounts of those who made the trip between 1850 and 1855 that are collected in this third volume in a four-part series speak of wonders and adventures, but also of disaster and deprivation. Traversing the ever-changing landscape, these pioneers braved flooded rivers, endured cholera and hunger, and had encounters with Indians that were often friendly and sometimes troubled. Rich in detail and diverse in the experiences they relate, these letters, diary excerpts, recollections, and reports capture the voices of women and men of all ages and circumstances, hailing from states far and wide, and heading west in hope and desperation. Their words allow us to see the grit and glory of the American West as it once appeared to those who witnessed its transformation. Michael L. Tate begins the volume with an introduction to this middle phase of the trails’ history. A headnote and annotations for each document sketch the author’s background and reasons for undertaking the trip and correct and clarify information in the original manuscript. The extensive bibliography identifies sources and suggests further reading.

Author : Michael L. Tate
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806166770
Total Pages : 378 pages
Book Rating : 4.73/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Medicine Road, Part 4 written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1841 and 1866, more than a half-million people followed trails to Oregon, California, and Utah in one of the largest mass migrations in American history. The Great Medicine Road, Part 4 collects the letters, diaries, and reminiscences of some of the emigrants who made this journey between 1856 and 1869, as a second generation of miners, farmers, town builders, and religious believers turned their adventurous eyes westward in search of new beginnings. Here, in their own words, are the experiences of young men hoping to make their fortunes in mining operations that had sprung up as the gold rush wore down, in California but also now in the silver mines of Nevada’s Comstock Lode and the recently discovered gold mines of Colorado’s Denver and Pike’s Peak regions. Here also are families and farmers looking for land in the fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon, or joining the Mormon community in Utah. And here are the stories of intrepid sojourners traveling with—or without—military escorts as the Civil War, conflicts with Indians, and the Mormon stand against the U.S. government altered the circumstances of westward traffic. These documents, with an introduction and editorial notes written by historian Michael L. Tate to provide context and commentary, comprise the fourth and final installment in a documentary history of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. They give a living voice to the history of the American experience at a time of westward expansion and profound, unprecedented change.

Author : J. Michael Geiger
Publisher : AuthorHouse
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 134 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mystery of 5MR18 at the Narrows on the South Platte River written by J. Michael Geiger and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2023-09-20 with total page 134 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few mysteries are solved without questions remaining. This mystery too will leave the reader asking for more information about wagon life during the western migration, the draw of gold fields, and the lure of business and political ties, and much more. In all mysteries there is the intrigue and mental gymnastics of uncertainty, folklore, obscurity of fact. Our imagination leads us to travel the pathways provided by betrayal, greed, inference, and conjecture. These building footprints, forgotten and left to be covered by sand and time, provided the primary evidence of an untold piece of Colorado's story. The footprints have been sitting in the sand, unrecognized and unheralded, even their birth story was unknown. Are these relics of the past centuries old, or merely decades? There was no known current recognition, no known builder, purpose, history or name identity. Their history and the story they represent covers more than six states, and although just footprints, they may have been unique and of major significance for the period. They also could signify something to decorate the pages of infamy and betrayal. As the trail winds through many states, false leads, and familiar pioneer names, there emerges a sense of historical significance pointing to even more historical associations and questions. There is intrigue regarding those involved with what these building footprints represent, from life on the prairie, to those desiring fame and fortune by spinning their influence from Colorado to Washington DC. only to find that today, in many aspects, this story continues.

Author : Michael L. Tate
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806166991
Total Pages : 329 pages
Book Rating : 4.95/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Medicine Road, Part 4 written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2020-05-07 with total page 329 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between 1841 and 1866, more than a half-million people followed trails to Oregon, California, and Utah in one of the largest mass migrations in American history. The Great Medicine Road, Part 4 collects the letters, diaries, and reminiscences of some of the emigrants who made this journey between 1856 and 1869, as a second generation of miners, farmers, town builders, and religious believers turned their adventurous eyes westward in search of new beginnings. Here, in their own words, are the experiences of young men hoping to make their fortunes in mining operations that had sprung up as the gold rush wore down, in California but also now in the silver mines of Nevada’s Comstock Lode and the recently discovered gold mines of Colorado’s Denver and Pike’s Peak regions. Here also are families and farmers looking for land in the fertile Willamette Valley of Oregon, or joining the Mormon community in Utah. And here are the stories of intrepid sojourners traveling with—or without—military escorts as the Civil War, conflicts with Indians, and the Mormon stand against the U.S. government altered the circumstances of westward traffic. These documents, with an introduction and editorial notes written by historian Michael L. Tate to provide context and commentary, comprise the fourth and final installment in a documentary history of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails. They give a living voice to the history of the American experience at a time of westward expansion and profound, unprecedented change.

Author : Michael L. Tate
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806153180
Total Pages : 254 pages
Book Rating : 4.86/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Great Medicine Road, Part 2 written by Michael L. Tate and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2015-10-01 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the early weeks of 1848, as U.S. congressmen debated the territorial status of California, a Swiss immigrant and an itinerant millwright forever altered the future state’s fate. Building a sawmill for Johann August Sutter, James Wilson Marshall struck gold. The rest may be history, but much of the story of what happened in the following year is told not in history books but in the letters, diaries, journals, and other written recollections of those whom the California gold rush drew west. In this second installment in the projected four-part collection The Great Medicine Road: Narratives of the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails, the hardy souls who made the arduous trip tell their stories in their own words. Seven individuals’ tales bring to life a long-ago year that enriched some, impoverished others, and forever changed the face of North America. Responding to often misleading promotional literature, adventurers made their way west via different routes. Following the Carson River through the Sierra Nevada, or taking the Lassen Route to the Sacramento Valley, they passed through the Mormon Zion of Great Salt Lake City and traded with and often displaced Native Americans long familiar with the trails. Their accounts detail these encounters, as well as the gritty realities of everyday life on the overland trails. They narrate events, describe the vast and diverse landscapes they pass through, and document a journey as strange and new to them as it is to many readers today. Through these travelers’ diaries and memoirs, readers can relive a critical moment in the remaking of the West—and appreciate what a difference one year can make in the life of a nation.

Author : Shirley Ann Wilson Moore
Publisher : University of Oklahoma Press
ISBN 13 : 0806156856
Total Pages : 384 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Sweet Freedom's Plains written by Shirley Ann Wilson Moore and published by University of Oklahoma Press. This book was released on 2016-10-20 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The westward migration of nearly half a million Americans in the mid-nineteenth century looms large in U.S. history. Classic images of rugged Euro-Americans traversing the plains in their prairie schooners still stir the popular imagination. But this traditional narrative, no matter how alluring, falls short of the actual—and far more complex—reality of the overland trails. Among the diverse peoples who converged on the western frontier were African American pioneers—men, women, and children. Whether enslaved or free, they too were involved in this transformative movement. Sweet Freedom’s Plains is a powerful retelling of the migration story from their perspective. Tracing the journeys of black overlanders who traveled the Mormon, California, Oregon, and other trails, Shirley Ann Wilson Moore describes in vivid detail what they left behind, what they encountered along the way, and what they expected to find in their new, western homes. She argues that African Americans understood advancement and prosperity in ways unique to their situation as an enslaved and racially persecuted people, even as they shared many of the same hopes and dreams held by their white contemporaries. For African Americans, the journey westward marked the beginning of liberation and transformation. At the same time, black emigrants’ aspirations often came into sharp conflict with real-world conditions in the West. Although many scholars have focused on African Americans who settled in the urban West, their early trailblazing voyages into the Oregon Country, Utah Territory, New Mexico Territory, and California deserve greater attention. Having combed censuses, maps, government documents, and white overlanders’ diaries, along with the few accounts written by black overlanders or passed down orally to their living descendants, Moore gives voice to the countless, mostly anonymous black men and women who trekked the plains and mountains. Sweet Freedom’s Plains places African American overlanders where they belong—at the center of the western migration narrative. Their experiences and perspectives enhance our understanding of this formative period in American history.