Settlers queuing up for the 1889 Land Rush, to claim homesteads.

 

To the left, a buckboard like Emerson’s; on the right, a phaeton like Theo’s.

 

(L) A sod house, made of mud and sod because timber was dear in the prairies. (R) And the prairies were prone to burning.

 

Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Shows gave people a wildly romantic- and inaccurate- view of the western frontier.

 

All Photos Courtesy of the US Library of Congress.