Old West Timeline

1883

• Theodore Roosevelt arrives in North Dakota to hunt buffalo and buys a ranch.

• Swiss artist Karl Bodmer tours the West.

• Texas purchases The Alamo from the Catholic Church to preserve it as an historic shrine.

• The Northern Pacific Railroad, connecting the northwestern states to points east, is finally completed, after a 19-year struggle against treacherous terrain and intermittent financing. Along the line, crews blast a 3,850-foot tunnel through solid granite and construct a 1,800-foot trestle. As a result, the round trip to the Columbia River that took Lewis and Clark two-and-a-half years in 1803 it took just nine days.

• Buffalo Bill Cody starts his Wild West Show

1886

• Geronimo surrenders to General Nelson A. Miles in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, after more than a decade of guerilla warfare against American and Mexican settlers in the Southwest. The terms of surrender require Geronimo and his tribe to settle in Florida, where the Army hopes he can be contained.

• On February 18 Dave Rudabaugh, a former member of Billy the Kid's Dodge City Gang, is reportedly captured and decapitated by townspeople after terrorizing the village of Parral, Mexico.

• On December 1st brothers, Jim and Rube Burrow, rob their first train in Bellevue, Texas.

1887

• Silver is discovered in Leadville, Colorado.

• On November 8, 1887 Doc Holliday died of tuberculosis in Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

• Congress passed the General Allotment or Dawes Act. Under its provisions, tribal landholdings and tribal leadership were effectively dissolved. While it was in effect (1887-1934) about 60 percent of the remaining Indian land base, over 86 million acres, passed out of Indian ownership.

• Fifty thousand homesteaders swarm into Oklahoma on the first day of the land rush.
• North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington are admitted to the Union.
• Belle Starr gunned down in cold blood from behind near her home in the Oklahoma Territory, her killer was never found
• Butch Cassidy is involved with his first robbery, the Telluride, Colorado bank for $10,000
• Belle Starr is murdered in Indian Indian Territory.

• Oklahoma is organized as a territory; art remains as the Indian Territory.
• Idaho and Wyoming are admitted to the Union.
• The massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ends the Indian Wars
• Sitting Bull is murdered in a confrontation at the Standing Rock Reservation
• The U.S. Department of the Interior announces that the frontier is officially closed.

• The Dalton Gang raids Coffeyville, Kansas. Grat and John are killed and Emmett is sent to prison.
• A cattlemen's army invades Johnson County, Wyoming in an incident that becomes known as the Johnson County War.

• Repeal of the Sherman Act demonetizes silver. Many silver boom towns go bust overnight.

• Utah is admitted to the Union.
• Butch Cassidy formed the “Wild Bunch” which consisted of 15 men and 4 women.

• Galveston, Texas is hit by a hurricane, killing some 6,000 residents.
• Jim Butler discovers silver at Tonopah, Nevada launching a twenty year boom.

• "Black gold" is discovered at the Spindle-top oil field near Beaumont, Texas .

• On April 26, 1901 Black Jack Ketchum was hanged in Clayton, New Mexico. He was the only person ever hanged for train robbery in the State of New Mexico.

• The great earthquake and fire level San Francisco killing some 700 people and leaving 225,000 homeless.

• Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory are joined to create the state of Oklahoma.
• Tribal governments are abolished in Oklahoma.

• New Mexico is admitted to the Union.
• Arizona is admitted to the Union.

• On December 5, 1916, the last stage robbery in the nation took place in Jarbridge Canyon, one-quarter mile north of Jarbridge, Nevada.

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From the Rocky Mountain General Store

Saloon Style Tin Signs - Decorate with saloon-like decor with these nostalgic tin signs. Find saloons, restaurants, liquor and beer, including Budweiser, Coors, and more. All signs are made of heavy gauge metal and have rolled edges for safe handling.  Great for hanging or framing!