The vast land stretching from the Missouri River to the Rocky Mountains – the western prairies - was settled only after the
end of the Civil War… As the American government encouraged
settlers to populate this region by granting each settler one hundred and sixty acres of public land, under the provisions of the Homestead Act.
For ten thousand years, this had been prairie land - home to buffaloes and Red Indians. These settlers were known as the
sodbusters (sod is the grass and the soil beneath it, held together by the roots). Settling this virgin territory was something of a gamble; but many people took it nonetheless. The availability of running water was an issue - and when it rained, the water seeped into the mud walls. Their earliest shelters (built mostly of mud) were known as dugouts; these stayed cool in summer and warm in winter.
With the passage of time, individual homesteads grew into clusters (as more settlers arrived), roads – and even barbed wire fences - were built, as were wells and windmills, and clusters grew into towns. The entire countryside was changing before their eyes, as the settlers planted corn and potatoes on their farmlands.
The early pioneers faced many hardships; not only did they face the vagaries of nature (blizzards and snowstorms), but the invasion of locusts as well. Not all the settlers could take the harshness of nature in their stride. Many abandoned their homes, and left for kinder, gentler lands. But those who stayed the course were rewarded: for post-offices, railway depots, churches, schools and hotels – all the hallmarks of civilization – were being set up in these frontier towns.
Thousands of frontier towns sprung up on the prairies. Ironically, even as these lands were being settled, new lands were being opened up for further settlement in the North West of the country… And a new generation of pioneers was preparing to make their fortunes in the vast, open spaces of these new territories.