The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, includes the geography, history, folklore, and culture in the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial settlements in the early 17th century and ended with the admission of the last few western territories as states in 1912 (except Alaska, which was not admitted into the Union until 1959). This era of massive migration and settlement was particularly encouraged by President Thomas Jefferson following the Louisiana Purchase, giving rise to the expansionist attitude known as “Manifest Destiny” and the historians’ “Frontier Thesis”. The legends, historical events and folklore of the American frontier have embedded themselves into United States culture so much so that the Old West, and the Western genre of media specifically, has become one of the defining periods of American national identity.
The archetypical Old West period is generally accepted by historians to have occurred between the end of the American Civil War in 1865 until the closing of the Frontier by the Census Bureau in 1890.
By 1890, settlement in the American West had reached sufficient population density that the frontier line had disappeared; in 1890 the Census Bureau released a bulletin declaring the closing of the frontier, stating: “Up to and including 1880 the country had a frontier of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement that there can hardly be said to be a frontier line. In the discussion of its extent, its westward movement, etc., it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the census reports.”
A frontier is a zone of contact at the edge of a line of settlement. Leading theorist Frederick Jackson Turner went deeper, arguing that the frontier was the scene of a defining process of American civilization: “The frontier,” he asserted, “promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people.” He theorized it was a process of development: “This perennial rebirth, this fluidity of American life, this expansion westward…furnish[es] the forces dominating American character.” Turner’s ideas since 1893 have inspired generations of historians (and critics) to explore multiple individual American frontiers, but the popular folk frontier concentrates on the conquest and settlement of Native American lands west of the Mississippi River, in what is now the Midwest, Texas, the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, the Southwest, and the West Coast.
Enormous popular attention was focused on the Western United States (especially the Southwest) in the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, from the 1850s to the 1910s. Such media typically exaggerated the romance, anarchy, and chaotic violence of the period for greater dramatic effect. This inspired the Western genre of film, along with television shows, novels, comic books, video games, children’s toys and costumes.
As defined by Hine and Faragher, “frontier history tells the story of the creation and defense of communities, the use of the land, the development of markets, and the formation of states.” They explain, “It is a tale of conquest, but also one of survival, persistence, and the merging of peoples and cultures that gave birth and continuing life to America.” Turner himself repeatedly emphasized how the availability of free land to start new farms attracted pioneering Americans: “The existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward, explain American development.” Through treaties with foreign nations and native tribes, political compromise, military conquest, the establishment of law and order, the building of farms, ranches, and towns, the marking of trails and digging of mines, and the pulling in of great migrations of foreigners, the United States expanded from coast to coast, fulfilling the ideology of Manifest destiny. In his “Frontier Thesis” (1893), Turner theorized that the frontier was a process that transformed Europeans into a new people, the Americans, whose values focused on equality, democracy, and optimism, as well as individualism, self-reliance, and even violence.
As the American frontier passed into history, the myths of the West in fiction and film took a firm hold in the imaginations of Americans and foreigners alike. In David Murdoch’s view, America is exceptional in choosing its iconic self-image: “No other nation has taken a time and place from its past and produced a construct of the imagination equal to America’s creation of the West.” (Wikipedia)
A vain man, George Armstrong Custer posed for more than 150 photographs in his lifetime, including this last photo, taken of him two months before the 1876 Battle of the Little Big Horn that would end his life.
Buffalo hunting began as a business in 1870, peaked in 1872-73, and the millions of Buffalo were gone by the mid ’80s. The Buffalo hunters were most easily distinguished by their weapons—usually large caliber Sharps rifles.
Gunfighters were a unique Western frontier product and a breed of their own—neither outlaw nor lawman but often either or both during their lifetime. This photo of Billy Brooks depicts a typical gunfighter of the 1870s, and he fit the mold: he was a lawman in Newton and Ellsworth, Kansas, a gunfighter in Dodge City—before any of those towns became “cowtowns”—and he died at the end of a rope in 1874 as a horse thief. This photo was probably taken circa 1872.
George Crook was the army’s pre-eminent Indian fighter during the Indian Wars, serving all across the West from California to Montana to Arizona. He was effective but not spectacular or flamboyant. Here Crook is pictured in Arizona in 1886 with two Apache scouts, Dutchy and Alchesay, and his favorite mule, Apache. Would Custer have dressed the way Crook is dressed? Or have ridden a mule?
There were many lawmen in the West who gained fame in their days, including Pat Garrett, Bat Masterson and Heck Thomas. Joe LeFors was made famous as the persistent lawman in the white hat in the movie Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, referenced by the oft-repeated line: “Who is that guy?” “That guy” was LeFors. Although he did pursue the Wild Bunch, his most famous exploit was tricking Tom Horn into a confession, which led Horn to being hanged. LeFors lived to old age and wrote a manuscript about his life.
The earliest of the Western frontiersmen were the explorers and the mountain men or trappers. Since this period was generally from 1800 to 1840, the camera was not around to capture these individuals until old age. Kit Carson was a mountain man, scout and military leader. He caught the American imagination early, primarily because of his association with explorer John Fremont. Carson lived until 1868 and this photo, taken shortly before he died, reveals the character of this modest and deservedly admired man.
Ned Christie was not your typical bank- and train-robbing outlaw. He was a Cherokee whose crime was “running whiskey” and possibly horse theft. His notoriety came from the fight he waged against the lawmen trying to arrest him. As can be seen from this photo, he eventually lost, being gunned down in his fortified home on a mountaintop near Tahlequah, Cherokee Nation, in 1892. By the 1890s, photos such as these were often taken of dead outlaws, almost as if they were “trophies.”
Rose Dunn was guilty only of liking the company of outlaws. She was real (some have doubted she existed), and she became known as Rose of Cimarron when she was but 15 years old. There is controversy regarding the role she played in the big battle between lawmen and outlaws in Ingalls, Oklahoma Territory, in 1895. This photo is also questioned, some saying it was made by Bill Tilghman, sheriff of Oklahoma’s Lincoln County, for his 1915 movie, Passing of the Oklahoma Outlaws. But that cannot be. The photo is definitely from the 1890s.
Much of the interest in the Old West was originally generated by the frontier characters who became showmen and carried the romance of the West all through this country and over to Europe. Texas Jack Omohundro was a genuine frontier scout before he joined Buffalo Bill Cody on the stage. It is said they were lousy actors, but they sure looked good! This photo shows us what the audiences saw onstage. You can see why they loved them, even if they could not act.
Some photos of the Old West are just interesting and curious. In this circa 1870 tintype, the unidentified Cherokee, one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes relocated to Indian Territory, is wearing “civilized” (white man’s) clothing, which his people had adopted by that time. He proudly brandishes a gold tinted knife. One wonders the significance.
The cowboy is one of the favorite characters of the Old West, but few individual cowboys became famous. They were proud of what they did and often posed for studio photos, decked out in their favorite outfit. This unidentified cowboy is typical of his kind and obviously genuine, wearing boots, chaps, a great gun belt and holster, bandanna and fantastic hat, while proudly displaying his Colt Single Action. The photo probably dates from the 1880s.
Gamblers considered themselves the elite of frontier society. They were a troublemaking group that included many notorious gunfighters. This autographed photo of Billy Simms, a typical gambler dandy, was presented to vaudeville performer Eddie Fox at the Jack Harris Saloon and Vaudeville Theater in San Antonio. Gunfighter Ben Thompson also gave Fox an autographed photo in 1879. Thompson killed Jack Harris in 1882 and was in turn killed in 1884 in the same theater by Simms. Yes, gamblers were a rowdy bunch.
Scouts were the first frontiersmen to be popularized in story and onstage. They were some of the most flamboyant of all the Old West characters. The most famous was Buffalo Bill Cody, whose first stage show was Scouts of the Prairie in 1872. Luther Kelly was a typical scout, and like most, he had a colorful nickname: “Yellowstone” Kelly. Among his many experiences in the West was his role as chief of scouts for Gen. Nelson A. Miles. This photo, taken early in his long career, shows him to be as “stage-worthy” as Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack Omohundro.
