At the close of the Civil War, Kansas and Texas were sentinel states on the middle border. Beyond the Rocky Mountains, California, Oregon, and Nevada stood guard, the last of them having been just admitted to furnish another vote for the 15th Amendment abolishing slavery. Between the near and far frontiers lay a vast reach of plain, desert, plateau, and mountain, almost wholly undeveloped.

A broad domain, extending from Canada to Mexico and embracing the regions including Washington, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, the Dakotas, and Oklahoma, that had fewer than half a million inhabitants. It was laid out into territories, each administered under a governor appointed by the President and Senate. Once the requisite number of inhabitants was reached, voters elected a Legislature.

No railway line stretched across the desert. St. Joseph, Missouri, on the Missouri River, was the terminus of the Eastern lines. The stagecoach system, established in 1858, took 25 days for a passenger to make the overland journey to California, and the swift Pony Express, organized in 1860, took more than ten days to carry a letter to San Francisco. Indians still roamed the plains and deserts, and more than one powerful tribe disputed the white man’s title to the soil.