THE WAGONMASTERS High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe Trail to 1880 - Hardcover

Walker, Henry Pickering

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0806107103 ISBN 13: 9780806107103

Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press, 1966

Synopsis

From 1822, when the first wagons were used in the Santa Fe trade, until 1880, when the completion of major railroad lines made the wagon train all but obsolete, wagon freighting was essential to the trade, settlement, and growth of the American West, from the Missouri Valley to the Great Basin. Freighters carried goods to and from Santa Fe, bringing in much of the trade goods for the settlements of the Mountain West. Under contract to the government, they supplied the army sent to fight Mexicans and American Indians. Without the wagonmasters, the flow of gold from the mines of Colorado and Montana, which proved essential during the Civil War, would have been delayed at least a decade. The Wagonmasters is the first comprehensive account of this colorful bygone industry and the men who worked the wagon trains—bullwhackers and mule skinners. A breed apart, they developed their own customs and language, greatly enriching American speech. The business was hard, dirty, and dangerous, but the wagon freighters, like the U.S. mail, almost always came through.

About this title

About the Author

Henry Pickering Walker (1911–1984), a well-known historian of the American West, was the author of The Wagonmasters: High Plains Freighting from the Earliest Days of the Santa Fe Trail to 1880 and coauthor of Historical Atlas of Arizona, also published by the University of Oklahoma Press.

Review

“A colorful account of a great breed of men.”—Chicago Tribune

“Certainly of interest to scholars and historians, The Wagonmasters should appeal too, to more serious Western history buffs because of its straightforward, coherent story of an important phase of the American West.”—Sandra Dallas, Denver Post

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press
• Publication date: 1966
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0806107103
• ISBN 13: 9780806107103
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 347