On the Fourth of July in 1868, William Gilpin gave a speech in Denver, Colorado Territory. William Gilpin was the governor of the territory at the time. His speech portrayed the future of Colorado as one of limitless possibility. So limitless, in fact, that the laws of nature did not apply to Colorado. You probably […]
Tag: Railroad
“Rain Follows the Plow” – One of America’s Great Mistakes?
“Rain follows the Plow.” It’s a sentence that seems so ridiculous to modern people that we wonder how anyone ever believed it. But in America in the late 19th century, this was gospel truth to some people. Rain follows the plow. The idea behind rain follows the plow was simple and powerful. Proponents needed a […]
John Wesley Powell – Forgotten Prophet of the Old West?
Back when I first started grad school, I learned about John Wesley Powell. His career was both inspirational and tragic. And Powell’s career was also an interesting encapsulation of the history of the United States after the Civil War. John Wesley Powell was an explorer, a scientist, and, in some ways, a visionary. You’ve probably […]
The John Wesley Powell Map – A Real West That Could’ve Been?
Take a look at the following map of the American West. It is known as the John Wesley Powell map. Study it for a moment. The title is “Arid Region of the United States, Showing Drainage Districts.” A bland name, perhaps, but straightforward. The map’s author is one of the more important scientists in American […]
The Polk County Race War of 1896 Arkansas
In my recent post on the Springfield Massacre of 1908, I discussed a disturbing fact of American history. The nation suffered from hundreds of attacks/massacres/eliminations of African Americans in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Yet, most people today know nothing about any of them. So, in this post I’ll relate the story of another, […]