1997
First Published
3.86
Average Rating
400
Number of Pages
Early in the nineteenth century, the mountain men emerged as a small but distinctive group whose knowledge and experience of the trans-Mississippi West exted the national consciousness to continental dimensions. Though Lewis and Clark blazed a narrow corridor of geographical reality, the West remained largely terra incognita until trappers and traders—Jim Bridger, Kit Carson, Tom Fitzpatrick, Jedediah Smith—opened paths through the snow-choked mountain wilderness. They opened the way west to Fremont and played a major role in the pivotal years of 1845-1848 when Texas was annexed, the Oregon question was decided, and the Mexican War ed with the Southwest and California in American hands, the Pacific Ocean becoming our western boundary.
Avg Rating
3.86
Number of Ratings
309
5 STARS
29%
4 STARS
36%
3 STARS
28%
2 STARS
6%
1 STARS
1%
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Author
Robert M. Utley
Author · 24 books
A specialist in Native American history and the history of the American West, Robert Marshall Utley was a former chief historian of the National Park Service. He earned a Bachelor of Science in history from Purdue University in 1951, and an Master of Arts in history from Indiana University in 1952. Utley served as Regional Historian of the Southwest Region of the NPS in Santa Fe from 1957 to 1964, and as Chief Historian in Washington, D.C. from 1964 until his retirement in 1980.
