Page 436 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

434  THE GREA T PLAINS

Mural showing the Lewis and Clark expedition
known as Native-American Ter ritory names, including those of each state –
(present-day Oklahoma). More than Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas,
4,000 people died from hunger, disease, Nebraska, and the Dakotas.
and exposure on the long journey, dubbed Among the first Americans to explore the
the “Trail of Tears,” in the southeastern Great Plains were the legendary Lewis and
United States. Native American influence Clark, whose expedition to the Pacific Ocean
on the region is hard to quantify, but its and back took more than two years, from
heritage survives in numerous place 1804 to 1806. Remarkable as their journey
was, the later expedition of the German
KEY DATES IN HISTORY Prince Maximilian made perhaps the most
1738–43 French fur trader Pierre Gaultier du Varennes, enduring contribution to the region’s lore.
Sieur de la Verendrye, explores the northern Maximilian’s journals, as well as artist Karl
Great Plains
Bodmer’s drawings and paintings of Native
1764 St. Louis established Americans, were published in Germany in
1803 The US buys much of the region from France as 1838, and finally put the Great Plains on the
part of the Louisiana Purchase
1833 German artist Karl Bodmer documents Native international map.
American lifestyles Both expeditions embarked from
1882 “Buffalo Bill” stages the world’s first rodeo in St. Louis, the region’s oldest city, founded as
North Platte, Nebraska a distant French fur-trading frontier outpost.
1890 Massacre of 300 Sioux by the US Army By the mid-19th century, Kansas City had
at Wounded Knee on Pine Ridge Reservation,
South Dakota joined St. Louis as an outpost for pioneers
1907 Hollywood actor John Wayne is born in crossing the Great Plains on the legendary
Winterset, Iowa Santa Fe, California, and Oregon Trails.
1930–37 Extended drought and sustained winds After the Civil War, a series of trans-
create the Dust Bowl continental railroads followed many of the
1941 Mount Rushmore National Memorial completed same routes, cutting down on travel time
1948 Work begins on Crazy Horse Memorial in the and transportation costs. The railroads,
Black Hills of South Dakota
1965 Gateway Arch completed in St. Louis on the site however, sliced across the migration routes
of the original 1764 settlement for the bison herds, whose numbers
2000 Oklahoma City National Memorial dedicated on dwindled from millions to near-extinction.
fifth anniversary of the Federal Building truck bombing As the railroads opened up the land, the
Native Americans were forced onto

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