Heading West: Life with the Pioneers, 21 Activities
Acknowledgments want to thank Darke County Parks and its director •Roger Van Frank and Garst Museum in Greenville Ohio and its director Penny Perry for allowing me to photograph artifacts on their premises Thanks to Margery Pepiot and Karen Burkett for posing for me in pioneer dress Thanks too to Laura James for allowing me to use one of her photos I also thank Brandon Marie Miller for introducing me to Chicago Review Press and Mary Kay Carson and Tom Uhlman for advice on doing the book And last but not least thanks to Jerome Pohlen my editor who patiently answered all my questions and was sup portive throughout the process of putting together this
Time Line 1754 63 French and Indian War 1775 Daniel Boone blazes the Wilderness Road to Kentucky 1787 Northwest Ordinance creates the Northwest Territory 1803 United States buys Louisiana Terri tory from France 1804 06 Lewis and Clark Expedition explores the Louisiana Territory 1805 07 Zebulon Pike explores the Rocky Mountains and finds Pikes Peak 1807 John Colter discovers geysers in what is now Yellowstone National Park 1811 John Jacob Astor builds a fur trading post in Oregon 1820 Stephen Long leads an expedition across the Rocky Mountains 1821 William Becknell leads an expedition to Santa Fe blazing a new trail the following year 1824 Jim Bridger is possibly the first European man to see the Great Salt Lake 1836 Narcissa Whitman and Eliza Spald ing are the first women of European ancestry to cross the Rocky Moun tains
Marcus and Narcissa Whitman estab lish a Methodist mission in Oregon Country 1837 John Deere invents the steel plow which can plow the prairie sod 1843 The first wagon train goes to the Oregon Country 1846 Most of the Donner Party perish when snow catches them in the mountains 1847 Marcus and Narcissa Whitman and 12 others are massacred by Indians at their Oregon mission Brigham Young leads the Mormons from Nauvoo Illinois to Utah 1848 Gold is discovered in California starting the Gold Rush United States wins the Mexican War and receives California and the Southwest 1861 65 U S Civil War 1862 The Homestead Act gives settlers free land in the West 1863 Quantrill's Raiders lead a massacre in Lawrence Kansas killing at least 150 people 1869 Transcontinental Railroad is com pleted 1890 Chief Big Foot and 350 Lakotas are killed at the Wounded Knee Mas sacre
1893 Frederick Jackson Turner in a speech in Chicago declares the American frontier closed 1986 Homesteading ends in Alaska
