Villages often had elaborate grids of square rooms and were usually built on mesa tops and valley bottoms. Later there were huge stone and adobe "apartment" houses, some up to five stories high.  During the 13th century, large cliff dwellings appeared. Some of these dwellings have been preserved at numerous places, including Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado and Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.

Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Portuguese explorer, commanded two ships and ventured as  far north as Monterey Bay, describing it, but never landing there, on his  expedition up the California coastline.  He sails into San Diego harbor, becoming the first European to enter California.  He finds that the Indians there have already heard that "men like us...bearded, clothed and armed...[are] killing many native Indians." Cabrillo goes on to chart the harbors at San Pedro and Santa Barbara. His expedition spends the winter on Santa Catalina Island, where Cabrillo dies. 

 
By the time the expedition reached the Rio Grande they had depleted the meager supplies they had brought with them. Therefore, they were ecstatic when they arrived at the Rio Grande which teemed with fish. Mesquite bushes and willow trees grew on the banks of the river and wildlife was abundant. The caravan had  completed the first stage of their mission. They had reached the border of New Mexico and to them it seemed like an oasis. The thirsty, hungry, and tired colonists were elated to find such an abundance of wildlife and were thankful for the water of the Rio Grande. Once the whole expedition was reunited, Oñate made preparations to officially take possession of New Mexico. 

Within another generation the horse will spread from New Mexico through the region west of the Rocky Mountains to the tribes of the Northwest.

 
Nearby, Fray Antonio de San Buenaventura establishes the mission of San Antonio de Valero, later known as The Alamo.  It was but one of many Catholic missions organized as part of the official Spanish plan to Christianize native Americans and colonize northern New Spain. Franciscan monks began building on the present site, on east side of the San Antonio River, about 1724 and remained there until 1793, when the Spanish government legally dissolved the mission and distributed ownership of its lands and buildings. 

San Carlos at Carmel (1770, his headquarters in California),  San Gabriel near present-day Los Angeles (1771), and San Francisco (1776).  Are among the many missions founded by Junipero Serra before his death in 1784.

 
In its heyday, Mission San Gabriel had almost eight thousand mission Indians, or neophytes, working for the padres. The pueblo of Los Angeles nearby the mission, housing the Spanish families sent up from New Spain to settle the land. The
mission fell to the ground in the earthquake of 1812, but was rebuilt shortly after. Today the mission stands amid the congestion of modern Los Angeles. It is noted for its old mission grapevine that now spreads for almost a full city block. 

 
The Spanish imprisoned Pike at Santa Fe, New Mexico,  and Chihuahua, Mexico.  He returned to the United States with valuable information about the geography of the Southwest. His report stimulated great interest in the settlement and trade of that region.

Although ill from the effects of his journey,  Austin began making plans to raise a colony.  Three months later, Moses Austin died in the Hazel Run settlement, where he was buried. He was later reinterred in Potosi, Missouri.

In response to his father's dying wish, Stephen F. Austin continued the colonization project and led the first of the "Old 300" colonists into Texas in late 1821.

Stephen Austin establishes the first American settlement in Tejas on land originally granted to his father along the San Antonio River. By the terms of this grant, all 300 families in the new colony are to become Mexican citizens and Roman Catholics.

The first white man to visit the Great Salt Lake was the fur trapper and scout Jim
Bridger. In 1824 Bridger was a member of a fur-trapping party in Utah. Wagers by the trappers as to the course of the Bear River prompted him to go down the river in a buffalo-skin bullboat. He reached the Great Salt Lake. Taking a drink of it, he
concluded that it was the Pacific Ocean. 

 
Santa Anna's leadership witnessed first the loss of Texas  followed by an enormous territorial cession to the United States.    To most Mexicans, Santa Anna remains a treacherous villain.  On his return to Mexico, Santa Anna is driven into retirement and his  agreement to recognize Texas independence is denounced. For the  next ten years, Mexican troops and Texans continue to war against one another in a series of intermittent clashes along the border.

 
The church of San Antonio de Valero, better known as the Alamo,  would have looked something like this had it been completed  according to plan. The original design of the church has frequently been likened to that of nearby Mission Concepción with a full three-level baroque retable facade, flanking bell towers, and a central dome topping the characteristic crusiform floorplan.

 
Sam Houston immediately took control of the Texas forces after the fall of the Alamo and Goliad, and conducted the retreat of the army to the site of the Battle of San Jacinto, where on April 21, 1836, his force defeated Santa Anna and secured Texas long sought independence. 

Sam Houston is elected President of the newly formed Republic of Texas and Texans vote to seek annexation by the United States.

 
John Fremont fought in the Civil War. 1878 to 1883 he was the governor of the
Arizona Territory. In 1890, three months before John Fremont died, he           received the rank of major general of the Army by an act of Congress.  Fremont's account of the expedition into the Rocky Mountains and expert maps are ordered published by Congress. 

 
Guided by Kit Carson, John C. Fremont launches a more ambitious expedition into the West, traveling from the Great Salt Lake north into Oregon, then across the Sierra Nevada Mountains into California, and finally eastward across what Fremont calls the "Great Basin" and over the Wasatch Mountains to the Arkansas River in Colorado. Fremont's report, published in 1844, again by Congressional order, becomes a best-seller, and his map of the West becomes a travel guide to pioneers on the Oregon Trail.

In December, President James K. Polk confirms the discovery of gold in California, sparking a nationwide stampede to the West.

California begins confining its remaining Indian population on harsh military reservations, but the combination of legal enslavement and near genocide has already made California the site of the worst slaughter of Native Americans in United States history. As many as 150,000 Indians lived in the state before 1849; by 1870, fewer than 30,000 will remain.

During this decade, a tidal wave of 2.5 million immigrants enter the United States, including 66,000 Chinese.

 
During the winter of 1859-1860, W. H. Russell, of the firm of Russell, Majors and Waddell, completed plans for the two- thousand-mile Pony Express Route between St. Joseph, Missouri, and Sacramento, California. Because of its effort to speedily deliver mail over great distances, the Pony Express has gained a glamorous
and romantic history, though it operated less than a year and a half (April 1860 - October 1861). 

Confederate forces fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, unleashing the Civil War.

California declares for the Union when news of the Civil War reaches the far West more than a month after the attack on Fort Sumter.

Completion of a transcontinental telegraph line signals the end for the Pony Express.

The Union Pacific Railroad begins moving westward, laying track at an average rate of one mile per day. In California, Chinese laborers join the Central Pacific work gangs, providing the strength, organization and persistence needed to break through the mountains.

Mark Twain described himself as;  "Born 1835; 5 ft. 8½ inches tall; weight about 145 pounds...  dark brown hair and red moustache, full face with very high ears  and light gray beautiful beaming eyes and a damned good moral character." 

Jesse Chisholm, a half-breed Cherokee trader, had already marked a trail suitable for driving cattle north across Indian Territory into central Kansas.  Along this route in 1867, Joseph McCoy sent agents to direct the cattlemen into Abilene.  From the beginning it was known as Chisholm's Trail.

This fold-out pamphlet features the Southern Pacific Company's "Sunset Route".
The pamphlet features the train time schedules and a separate California and
Texas information column detailing each states' climate, industry, and resources.
Connections are also available to "Old Mexico" Mexico City and Central America.
Poole Brothers, Map Engravers, Chicago,  drew the centerfold map.

Mark Twain publishes Roughing It,  his satirical account of the Wild West and his experiences as a journalist working for The Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, Nevada starting in 1862. 

William H. Jackson discovers and photographs the centuries-old Anasazi cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde in Colorado.

The notorious gunfighter, John Wesley Hardin, was responsible for the deaths of over 40 men.  After shooting a deputy, he drifted through Texas, then went to Florida burying six more along the way. The Texas Rangers captured him in Pensacola, Florida on July 23, 1877.  He was tried and sentenced to 25 years in prison in 1878. Wes spent his term wisely studying a wide variety of subjects including law. He was released in 1894 and given a full pardon.

 
The first students, a group of 84 Lakota children, arrive at the newly established United States Indian Training and Industrial  School at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a boarding school founded by former Indian-fighter Captain Richard Henry Pratt to remove young Indians from their native culture and refashion them as members of mainstream American society.

Legendary outlaw Billy the Kid, charged with more than 21 murders in a brief lifetime of crime, is finally brought to justice by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who trails The Kid for more than six months before killing him with a single shot at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

In 1879, Wovoka, a Paiute shaman, started a religious revival that promised peace, reunion with the dead, eternal life, and a world without whites. The Ghost Dance beliefs spread throughout the Indian tribes of the Great Plains. Sioux Indians, predicting a war with the whites, also added to the religion their own elements of apocalyptic, militant, and anti-white teachings. Numerous attempts were made by the federal government to suppress the religion--leading to Sitting Bull's death on December 15, 1890 and ultimately, to the Wounded Knee massacre. 

 
Robert Parker and his partner, Harry Longbaugh, better known as Butch Cassidy and “The Sundance Kid,” lead their “Wild Bunch” in a series of bank and train robberies across the West. When they eventually flee to South America in 1901, the era of the outlaw band comes to an end.