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American frontier

undeveloped territory of the United States, c. 1607–1912

10 dated entries naming American frontier, drawn from 10 separate years between 1607 CE and 1899 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as American Old West, Old West in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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17th century

  • 1607May 14 – Jamestown, Virginia, is established as the first permanent English settlement in North America, beginning the American frontier.source

19th century

  • 1821November 16 – American Old West: The Santa Fe Trail is first used by William Becknell.source
  • 1856November 17 – American Old West: On the Sonoita River in modern-day southern Arizona, the United States Army establishes Fort Buchanan, in order to help control new land acquired in the Gadsden Purchase.source
  • 1873July 21 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James–Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American Old West (US$3,000 from the Rock Island Express).source
  • 1882April 3 – Old West outlaw Jesse James is shot in the back of the head and killed by Robert Ford in St. Joseph, Missouri.source
  • 1883November 3 – American Old West: Self-described Black Bart the Po-8 makes his last stagecoach robbery, but leaves a handkerchief with a laundry mark that eventually leads to his capture.source
  • 1884December 1 – American Old West: Near Frisco, New Mexico, deputy sheriff Elfego Baca holds off a gang of 80 Texan cowboys, who want to kill him for arresting cowboy Charles McCarthy (the cowboys have been terrorizing the area's Hispanos, and Baca is working against them).source
  • 1890December 29 – Wounded Knee Massacre: At Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a Lakota camp, the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment tries to disperse the non-violent "Ghost-Dance" which was promised to usher in a new era of power and freedom to Native Americans but is feared as a potential rallying tool for violent rebellion by some in the U.S. government. Shooting begins, and 153 Lakota Sioux and 25 troops are killed; about 150 flee the scene. This is the last tribe to be defeated and confined to a reservation as well as the beginning of the decline of both the American Indian Wars and the American frontier.source
  • 1895August 19 – American frontier murderer and outlaw John Wesley Hardin is killed by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas.source
  • 1899April 7 – The Shootout at Wilson Ranch, the last major gunfight of the Wild West era in the U.S., takes place in Tombstone, Arizona. Brothers William Halderman and Thomas Halderman, kill two lawmen. They will be hanged on November 16, 1900.source

Named in the same entries