Page 564 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

562  THE ROCKIES

leg endary Shoshone guide Sacagawea the Rocky Mountains, bound for the
and her baby son. They followed the Pacific Northwest, the California gold fields,
Missouri upstream from the frontier out post and the Mormon lands in Utah. As a result,
of St. Louis, traveling by boat and later by conflicts between immigrants and Native
foot across Montana and Idaho on an epic Americans increased dramatically. In the
5,000-mile (8,047-km) journey to the mountains, the Nez Percé and other small
Pacific Ocean and back. Also in tribes lived comparatively
1806, Zebulon Pike led peaceful and sedentary lives,
an expedition to Colorado, while east of the mountains
following the Arkansas River were migratory bands
and spotting the majestic of Native Americans,
mountain that bears including such diverse
his name. Lewis & Clark National Historic Trail Interpretive and often rival tribes as
These explorers’ published Center, Great Falls, Montana the Sioux, Cheyenne,
accounts, describing the Crow, Arapahoe, and
sublime landscape and its wealth of Shoshone. Most of these eastern tribes
wildlife, attracted increasing numbers were themselves recent arrivals. Living in
of trappers and hunters, and by the 1830s mobile encampments of tepees, they had
several commercial outposts had been mastered the art of riding horses and
established, usually at the confluence of hunting buffalo. As cow boys and ranchers
major rivers. Their routes across what had moved into the rich grazing lands, some
once been seen as an impenetrable 50 million native bison were all but
barrier slowly but surely paved the way eradicated, and the tribes whose entire
for transcontinental travelers. By the mid- culture was based on these mighty
1800s, thousands of pioneers following herds came under desperate threat.
the Oregon Trail and other routes crossed By the beginning of the 20th century,
all the tribes had been contained in small
KEY DATES IN HISTORY reservations, far from their previous home-
1200 Ancestral Pueblo people abandon their cliff lands. Ironically, one of the country’s greatest
dwellings at Mesa Verde, Colorado Native American cultural reposi-tories is in
1700–1800 French-Canadian fur trappers explore Wyoming’s Buffalo Bill Historical Center,
the Rockies
1803 The US acquires much of this region through the a memo rial to the man who, as buffalo
Louisiana Purchase hunter and “Indian fighter”, contributed
1803 The Lewis and Clark expedition begins greatly to their destruction.
1806 Zebulon Pike explores the Arkansas River in
southern Colorado Progress & Development
1843 The Oregon Trail is opened
1858 Gold is discovered outside Denver The first transcontinental railroad crossed
1869 Wyoming gives women the vote southern Wyoming in the late 1860s,
1872 US Congress establishes the world’s first national
park at Yellowstone
1876 Battle of Little Bighorn
1915 The Lincoln Highway, the first transcontinental
route from New York City to San Francisco, runs across
southern Wyoming
1951 Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne is declared
the base of operations for all US Intercontinental
Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs)
2003 Memorial commemorating the Native American
victory at the Battle of Little Bighorn is dedicated at
the site of the battle in Montana
2013 Forest fire in the Colorado Springs area is the
most destructive in Colorado’s history
Tepees, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Wyoming

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Eyewitness Travel LAYERS PRINTED:
Portrait template “UK” LAYER
(SourceReport v1.2)
Date 5th December 2012
Size 125mm x 217mm