Although the “Wild West” was generally defined from 1865 to 1895, many events shaped the American West as a region from ancient times up to 1916.

50,000-5000 B.C. – Paleo-Siberians migrated to North America from Asia via the Bering Strait land bridge.

1500 B.C.-1000 A.D. – Ancient Puebloan culture thrived in the Southwest.

1540 – Francisco Vasquez de Coronado left Mexico to hunt for gold in the Southwest.

The Hernando de Soto expedition went as far as Oklahoma.

1541 – Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was the first white man to visit the pueblos in New Mexico

Coronado’s party crossed the Arkansas River and went as far as the present-day Kansas/Nebraska Border.

1542 – Portuguese navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo landed in San Diego, California.

1548 – Captain James Cook, seeking the Northwest Passage, charted part of the Oregon coastline.

1549 – Naval Officer Sir Francis Drake claimed California for Britain.

1598 – Juan de Onate established San Gabriel in New Mexico.

1610 – Don Pedro de Peralta founded Santa Fe, New Mexico.

1680 – Northern New Mexico Pueblo Indians, outraged by atrocities committed by Spanish explorers and colonists, resisted the Pueblo Revolt. Many settlers were killed, and the rest were driven south.

1682 –The Spanish established the first permanent settlement in Texas at Ysleta, near present-day El Paso.

1685  – A short-lived French colony was founded at Matagorda Bay, Texas.

1692-94 – Diego de Vargas re-conquered New Mexico.

1706 – Juan de Ulibarri claimed Colorado for Spain.

1743 – Louis-Joseph and Francois Verendrye explored South Dakota, seeking a water route to the Pacific Ocean.

1769 – The Spanish built Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala, the first California mission.

1776 – Fort Tucson was established in Arizona.

Franciscan friars Escalante and Dominguez explored Utah.

The Presidio was established in San Francisco, California.

1781 – Los Angeles, California, was founded.

1792-1804 – Captain George Vancouver explored the coast of Washington.

1803 –The Louisiana Purchase added the United States territory from the Gulf of Mexico to the Northwest. The price of the purchase was $15,000,000. The agreement was signed on May 2

The Lewis and Clark expedition began its exploration of the West.

1805 – Lewis and Clark explored Oregon and Washington.

Zebulon Pike’s expedition explored the American Southwest.

On October 10, Lewis and Clark met the Nez Perce.

1807 – Fur trapper John Colter explored the Yellowstone area in Wyoming.

1808 – John Jacob Astor organized the American Fur Company

1810 – Mexico revolted against Spanish rule.

The North West Company established Spokane House, the first fur-trading post in Washington.

1811 – John Jacob Astor established a trading post at Astoria, Oregon.

1812 – The Russians built Fort Ross, 50 miles north of San Francisco, California.

A Scottish party made the first permanent settlement in North Dakota.

Missouri Territory was organized on June 4, 1812.

1817 – Fort Pierre was established in what would later become South Dakota.

1818 – The United States obtained the northeast part of North Dakota in a treaty with Britain.

1819 – On March 2, Arkansas Territory was organized.

1820 – Daniel Boone died at a relative’s home on the Missouri frontier at age 85.

On March 3, the Missouri Compromise was passed, which primarily regulated slavery in the western territories. It prohibited slavery for all new states north of Arkansas except for Missouri.

On March 9, the Land Act of 1820 was enacted to eliminate the purchase of public land in the United States on credit and reduce the tract’s minimum size from 160 to 80 acres. The act also reduced the price per acre and paved the way for westward expansion.

The first American traders arrived via the Santa Fe Trail in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

By this time, more than 20,000 Native Americans lived in virtual slavery at the California missions.

1821 – Led by Stephen Austin, the first Americans settled in Texas.

The Hudson Bay Company established Fort Vancouver in what would become Washington state.

The U.S. government began moving the “Five Civilized Tribes” of southeast America (Cherokee, Creek, Seminole, Choctaw, and Chickasaw) to lands west of the Mississippi River.

1822 – Mountain man James Bridger made the first expedition into the Rocky Mountains.

Missouri Lieutenant Governor William Ashley placed an ad for fur traders for the new Rocky Mountain Trading Company.

1823 – Mexico became a republic.

The first permanent settlement in Nebraska was established at Bellevue.

On June 2, Arikara people attacked William Ashley and his band of fur traders at the present-day border between North and South Dakota. This event would be the most important of the early 19th-century battles between natives and mountain men.

August 1823 –  A force of 500 Sioux and 200 American soldiers led by Colonel Henry Leavenworth retaliated by attacking the Arikara.

1824 – James Bridger discovered the Great Salt Lake.

Congress created the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

1825 – The first mountain man’s rendezvous occurred on Henry’s Fork of the Green River in present-day Wyoming.

1826 – On January 24, the Creek Tribe agreed to cede their land in Georgia and move west. It was the first of a series of removal treaties.

On December 16, Benjamin Edwards rode into Mexican-controlled Nacogdoches, Texas, and proclaimed himself the ruler of the Republic of Fredonia. Edwards negotiated an agreement with the Cherokee people, offering to share Texas in exchange for their help in defense against the Mexican soldiers. Six weeks later, Edwards’ ill-planned revolution disintegrated, and he fled to the United States for sanctuary.

1827 – Fort Leavenworth was established in Kansas to protect travelers on the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails.

Dr. John McLoughlin built the first sawmill in the Pacific Northwest, which would later become Oregon.

1830 – On May 26, the Indian Removal Act was passed.

George Catlin became the first important artist to paint the American Indians.

1831 – On February 24, the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek, the first removal treaty under the Indian Removal Act, was proclaimed. The Choctaw in Mississippi ceded land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the West.

On May 27, trapper-explorer Jedediah Smith was killed by Comanche Indians on the Santa Fe Trail.

The First Missouri steamboat reached Pierre, South Dakota.

James Bowie invented the Bowie knife.

1832 – April 6, 1832 – The Black Hawk War began when the Sac and Fox people tried to plant their cornfields and were repulsed by whites. The Indians were forced to leave Illinois.

August 2, 1832 –  Texas settlers refused an order to surrender their arms to José de las Piedras, commander of the Mexican battalion in Nacogdoches. The ensuing Battle of Nacogdoches was sometimes called the opening gun of the Texas Revolution.

October 20, 1832 – In the Treaty of Pontotoc Creek, the Chickasaw Nation ceded northern Mississippi and moved west of the Mississippi River.

1833 – On January 12, a law was passed that made it unlawful for any native person to remain within the boundaries of Florida.

Brothers Charles and William Bent and veteran trapper-trader Ceran St. Vrain opened Bent’s Fort on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail.

Samuel Colt invented and began producing the revolver.

After Joseph Smith founded the Church of Latter-Day Saints community of Zion in present-day Kansas City, Missouri, area residents vehemently resisted and demanded that they leave.

On September 26, the Potawatomi of Southern Wisconsin and Northern Illinois signed the Treaty of Chicago, assuring their relocation to reservations west of the Mississippi River in Iowa, Missouri, and Kansas.

1834 – On June 30, the Indian Intercourse Act created Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. The territory also included parts of Kansas and Nebraska, but these lands were taken back when the Kansas and Nebraska territories were created in 1854.

Fort Laramie became the first trading post in Wyoming.

1835 – On October 2, the first battle of the Texas Revolution took place as U.S. settlers defeated a Mexican cavalry near the Guadalupe River.

On November 13, Texans officially proclaimed independence from Mexico, calling itself the Lone Star Republic.

1836 – Mexican forces attacked the Alamo on February 24, and all of its more than 180 defenders were slain, including William Travis, Jim Bowie, and Davy Crockett.

Texans under Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army and captured General Santa Anna at the Battle of San Jacinto.

Texas became a Republic.

1838 – On June 17, the Cherokee began the Trail of Tears, a 1,200-mile forced march from the East to present-day Oklahoma.

A smallpox epidemic north of San Francisco killed over 60,000 natives.

1839 – Missourians near Far West, Missouri, were no happier about the Mormons than those near Zion, some five years earlier. As Far West had grown to some 5,000 people, anti-Mormon hysteria increased, and the Mormons formed their own army. After several skirmishes between the two factions, Missouri ordered the Mormons from the state.

1840 – On March 19, the Republic of Texas soldiers killed some 30 Penateka Comanche leaders and warriors and five women and children in the Council House Fight in San Antonio.

On May 10, Mormon leader Joseph Smith moved his band of followers to Illinois to escape the hostilities they experienced in Missouri.

August 11, 1840 – After the Council House Fight in San Antonio, Texas, the Comanche retaliated by raiding villages throughout the Guadalupe Valley. When the Texas army and Rangers pursued them, the Battle of Plum Creek was fought on August 11, resulting in a decisive defeat of the Comanche.

1841 – The first covered wagons to travel the Oregon Trail arrived in Sacramento, California.

1842 – John C. Fremont began his exploration of the West with guide Kit Carson.

August 14, 1842 – The Second Seminole War ended; natives were removed from Florida and moved to Oklahoma.

1843 – The California Trail opened.

1844 – Miles Goodyear established Fort Buenaventura, the first town in Utah, on the site of present-day Ogden.

1845 – John L. O’Sullivan, a newspaper editor, claimed that the U.S. “manifest destiny” was to take Texas and spread to the Pacific Ocean.

Texas was admitted to the union.

Texas banned saloons, but the law was never enforced and was repealed in 1856.

1846 – Brigham Young and 3,000 Mormons set out for Utah on February 4, 1846.

On May 8, the first major battle of the Mexican War was fought at Palo Alto, Texas, and General Zachary Taylor’s forces won.

On May 13, the U.S. Congress declared war on Mexico.

The Black Bear Revolt began in California.

The American flag was raised in Monterey, California.

The United States, in a treaty with Britain, obtained the Oregon Territory

Mormons establish the first permanent settlement in Idaho.

The Donner Party was trapped in the Sierra Nevada when winter descended.

1847 – On January 13, the Treaty of Cahuenga ended the Mexican-American War in California.

On January 19, the Pueblo people of Taos, New Mexico, struck back, attacking a Taos home that Governor Charles Bent was visiting, murdering his guards, and then killing him. Fifteen more white settlers were killed before Colonel Sterling Price quelled the rebellion.

Brigham Young and the Mormons arrived at the Great Salt Lake, Utah.

Samuel Colt, with Texas Ranger Captain Sam Walker, developed the revolver.

In the Whitman Massacre of November 29, Cayuse and Umatilla Indians murdered missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman and his wife, Narcissa, and 12 others near the present-day town of Walla Walla, Washington. The incident began the Cayuse War.

1848 – On MMay 19 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican-American War; the United States got more than one-half million square miles, including what became the states of California, Nevada, Utah, most of New Mexico and Arizona, and parts of Wyoming and Colorado. Texas was also ceded to the United States. James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill in California.

A Mormon trading post at Genoa was the first permanent settlement in Nevada.

Oregon was organized as a territory.

The State of Deseret, incorporated by the Mormons, includes Utah, most of Nevada and Arizona, and parts of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, New Mexico, and Colorado.

1849 – 80,000 forty-niners make their way to California in search of gold.

In January, Old Dry Diggings, California, was unofficially renamed Hangtown when a mob ran down three men who reportedly tried to rob a local gambler. The men were flogged and hanged on Main Street.

At Chinese Camp, California, the first outbreak of anti-Chinese violence erupted due to a depression in the mining industry when white miners attempted to rid the Chinese miners from the community.

When outlaw Joaquin Murrieta and his brother were arrested in Murphys, California, for robbery, Joaquin was tied to a tree and brutally beaten, his brother was hanged, and his wife was raped. Afterward, when he tried to file charges, he was told that it was not illegal for whites to rape Mexican women or for whites to kill Mexicans. Murrieta would retaliate by beginning a series of raids and criminal activities throughout the state.

1850 – Levi Strauss began manufacturing heavyweight trousers for gold miners, made of the twilled cotton cloth known as “genes” in France. Strauss had intended to make tents but, finding no market, made a fortune in pants.

On June 3, five Cayuse men were hanged for the Whitman Massacre in Oregon City, Oregon.

On September 9, California was admitted to the union.

On September 9, New Mexico and Utah were organized as territories.

On September 29, President Millard Fillmore appointed Brigham Young as the first governor of Utah Territory.

On November 29, the San Francisco Grand Jury condemned gambling as “a crying evil” and urged that something must be done about prizefighting as well as numerous houses of ill-repute.

In the 1850s, the San Francisco Committee of Vigilance executed ten people for murder, 12 for conspiracy to commit murder, and 9 for kidnapping.

1851 – John L. Soule, in an editorial in the Terre Haute Express, advises: “Go West, young man, go West.” But New York Tribune editor Horace Greeley gets credit for the line.

On September 17, the Treaty of Fort Laramie was signed by the Sioux Indians.

On July 5, “Pretty Juanita,” convicted of murder after stabbing a man who had tried to rape her, became the first person hanged in the California mining camps.

On March 27, the Mariposa Battalion, led by James D. Savage, was the first reported non-natives to enter Yosemite Valley.

On November 13, the Denny Party landed at Alki Point, where they were the first settlers of Seattle, Washington.

1852 – The Mormon Church in Utah officially acknowledges that the practice of polygamy was part of its religion.

On March 18, the Wells Fargo Company was founded to provide express and banking services to California.

1853 – On February 8, Washington was organized as a territory,

On July 25, in a macabre instance of rough frontier justice, California Rangers claimed a $6000 reward by bringing in the severed head of outlaw Joaquin Murrieta, preserved in whiskey.

On October 25, Paiute Indians attacked U.S. Army Captain John W. Gunnison and his party of 37 soldiers and railroad surveyors near Sevier Lake, Utah. Gunnison and seven other men were killed.

On December 30, the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico added 29,640 square miles of the territory that became Arizona and New Mexico.

1854 – Nebraska and Kansas were organized as territories.

White settlers in Del Norte County, California, ambushed and killed 30 Tolowa people at the Etculet village on Lake Earl.

On May 30, the Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, created the territories of Kansas and Nebraska, and opened the Northern territories to slavery, leading to the “Bleeding Kansas” violence the following year.

August 19, 1854 – The Grattan Massacre occurred near Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

1855 – The Lecompton government was established in Kansas, starting the Kansas/Missouri Border War between pro-slavery and pro-freedom forces.

On September 3, General William Harney and 700 soldiers took revenge for the Grattan Massacre with a brutal attack on a Sioux village in Nebraska that left 100 men, women, and children dead.

On October 4, Kamiakan, chief of the Yakama, defeated forces under Major Haller in the first engagement of the Yakama War in Washington Territory.

1856 – On May 21, 1856, Border Ruffians and other pro-slavery supporters captured and sacked the abolitionist town of Lawrence, Kansas.

On May 24, in retaliation for the sacking of the abolitionist town of Lawrence, Kansas, by pro-slavery forces, militant abolitionist John Brown led a raid against a pro-slavery settlement along Pottawatomie Creek. Over the next four years, raids, skirmishes, and massacres continued in what became known as “Bleeding Kansas.”

1857 – On September 11, 1857, approximately 120 men, women, and children in a wagon train from Arkansas were murdered by a band of Mormons set on a holy vengeance. Known as the Mountain Meadows Massacre, the history of this event continues to generate fierce controversy and deep emotions even to this day.

On September 14, Mormon leader Brigham Young tried to prevent U.S. troops from entering the territory of Utah when President James Buchanan sent them to impose federal law. The Mormons attacked the federal troops’ supply lines, burning Fort Bridger and setting fire to the plains to deprive the advancing army of forage for its horses. At the same time, he readied a plan to evacuate and destroy Salt Lake City, should the federal troops get through.

1858 – Gold was discovered in Colorado

The first non-stop stagecoach from St. Louis, Missouri, arrived in Los Angeles, California, completing the 2,600-mile trip across the Southwest in 20 days.

1859 – Oregon was admitted to the Union.

Gold was discovered in Boulder Canyon, Colorado, sparking the Pikes Peak gold rush, which brought an estimated 100,000 fortune-hunters to the Rockies under the banner “Pikes Peak or Bust.”

The Comstock Lode was discovered in Nevada.

Painter Albert Bierstadt made his first trip to the West.

The first steamboat from St. Louis arrived in Fort Benton, Montana, the farthest-inland port in the world.

1860 – Gold was discovered in Idaho.

1861 – The Pony Express completed its inaugural delivery, bringing mail over 1,966 miles from St. Louis, Missouri, to Sacramento, California, in 11 days.

Kansas was admitted to the Union.

North Dakota and Nevada were organized as territories.

Crews working on completing a coast-to-coast telegraph line meet at Fort Bridger in Utah Territory. The first transcontinental telegram, transmitted from Sacramento to Washington, carries a message from the state’s Chief Justice to President Lincoln. Completion of a transcontinental telegraph line signals the end of the Pony Express.

The Civil War began when Confederates fired on Fort Sumter.

Colorado was organized as a territory.

Federal troops evacuated Indian Territory soldiers.

Denver, Colorado, was incorporated as a city.

Nevada was organized as a territory.

Henry Griffin discovered gold near the Powder River in Oregon.

1862 – Gold was discovered in Montana near the present-day town of Dillon.

Congress passed the Homestead Act.

Civil War action was seen in Arkansas, Texas, and New Mexico.

Little Crow’s uprising occurred in New Mexico.

The Battle at Picacho Pass in Arizona, the westernmost battle of the Civil War, took place on April 15

Apache Chief Cochise attacked U.S. soldiers, igniting a war that lasted the next ten years.

1863 – Arizona was organized as a territory

Idaho was organized as a territory.

The Bozeman Trail opened from central Wyoming to Virginia City, Montana.

Charles Crocker, Mark Hopkins, Leland Stanford, and Collis Huntington invested in the proposed Central Pacific Railroad, making them California’s Big Four.

William Quantrill led a raid on Lawrence, Kansas.

The U.S. Army killed more than 250 Shoshone Indians near Logan, Utah, in the Bear River Massacre.

1864 – Montana was organized as a territory.

Nevada was admitted to the Union.

Colorado cavalry volunteers killed 133 Cheyenne and Arapaho at Sand Creek.

Kit Carson accepted the surrender of 8,000 Navajo.

1865 – Indians massacred William J. Fetterman and 80 troops near Fort Kearny, Wyoming.

Jesse and Frank James launched their criminal career with a bank robbery in Liberty, Missouri.

Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed the first cattle trail, and 2000 head of cattle were moved from Texas to New Mexico.

Jesse Chisholm, a trader, cut the Chisholm Trail by carting a heavy load of buffalo hides from Oklahoma to Kansas.

A cholera epidemic struck many American cities.

1867 – Nebraska was admitted to the Union.

The first cattle drive from Texas up the Chisholm Trail arrived at the rail yards of Abilene, Kansas.

The United States purchased Alaska from Russia for 2 cents per acre.

August 1, 1867 – The Hayfield Fight occurred three miles from Fort C.F. Smith, Montana. Pitting a determined stand of 31 soldiers and civilians against more than 700 Sioux and Cheyenne warriors, the combined soldier/civilian force withstood six hours of attacks before relief finally arrived to disperse the warriors.

August 2, 1867 – The Wagon Box Fight between the Sioux and the U.S. Army occurred near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming.

The Treaty of Medicine Lodge created reservations in western Oklahoma for the Cheyenne, Arapaho, Kiowa, and Comanche Indians.

1868 – The Sioux signed a treaty with the United States at Fort Laramie, Wyoming.

The Kiowa were moved to the Oklahoma reservation.

The Crow Indians were moved to a Montana reservation.

The Battle of the Washita took place in Western Oklahoma on November 27, 1868. Lieutenant Colonel George A. Custer, leading the 7th Cavalry, attacked the sleeping Southern Cheyenne village of Chief Black Kettle. The chief and more than 100 Indians, many women and children, were killed. Hailed at the time as a military victory, it is today viewed as a massacre.

The Navajo Indian Reservation, the largest reservation in the country, was established in northeast Arizona, overlapping the four corners into Colorado, Utah, and New Mexico.

1869 – The Central Pacific and Union Pacific Railroads joined at Promontory Point, Utah, creating the first transcontinental railroad.

Utah and Wyoming were organized as territories.

Wyoming was the first state to give women the right to vote.

Wild Bill Hickok was Marshall in Hays City, Kansas.

Jesse James robbed his first bank.

John Wesley Powell made his first expedition on the Green and Colorado Rivers.

1870 – The Osage Indians were moved to a reservation in northeast Oklahoma.

The Ghost Dance movement appeared among the Paiute on reservations in Nevada. Participants believed in the imminent return of the dead and the buffalo, the white man’s disappearance, and the land’s return to the natives. This led to the Paiute Massacre of 1870, in which over half of the tribe was killed by settlers paranoid about the results.

Major General George Crook — arguably the Army’s best Indian fighter and one of the few government officials who treated all natives with respectful understanding — drove most of the Arizona Apache onto reservations. However, Warfare with the Apache persisted, led by Chief Geronimo.

On September 6, Louisa Ann Swain, a 70-year-old woman, became the first woman in America to vote in a public election at Laramie, Wyoming.

1871 – More than 100 Apache were killed in Arizona’s Camp Grant Massacre.

Wild Bill Hickok was the Marshal in Abilene, Kansas.

1872 – On January 18, “Buffalo Bill” Cody, General Sheridan, General Custer, Chief Spotted Tail, Chief Two Lance, and Grand Duke Alexis go on a buffalo hunt near North Platte, Nebraska.

Apache Chief Cochise surrendered to General O.O. Howard and was sent to a reservation.

Yellowstone became the first U.S. national park.

Dodge City, Kansas, was established as a center of the buffalo trade. After 1876, Texas cattle and cowboys were the town’s economic mainstay.

The first formal rodeo was held in Cheyenne, Wyoming.

Buffalo Bill Cody was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Later that year, he appeared on stage for the first time, portraying himself in “Scouts of the Prairie.”

The Sioux War began, dispersing the Sioux and Northern Cheyenne. General George Custer was continually outwitted by the native leaders Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, but it was draining on their tribes. Native attacks became less frequent as Sitting Bull and others retreated into Canada.

The Modoc War raged in southern Oregon and northern California. The conflict, also known as the Lava Beds War, was the last of the Indian Wars in these two states.

The Big Bonanza, the Comstock’s richest ore body, was discovered in Nevada.

Ellsworth succeeded Abilene as the northern stopping point on the Old Texas cattle trail.

1873 – The railroad arrived in South Dakota.

Cable cars were introduced in San Francisco, California.

Although federal authorities estimated hunters were killing buffalo at a rate of three million per year, President Grant vetoed a law protecting the herd from extermination.

The Modoc Indian War ended in California.

The double-action revolver was developed.

The James Gang pulls its first train robbery at Adair, Iowa.

1874 – On June 27, while occupying an old trading post, 28 hunters, including a 21-year-old Bat Masterson, besieged and eventually drove off 700 Comanche warriors at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls.

Gold was discovered in the Black Hills of South Dakota.

Joseph Glidden received a patent for barbed wire, an inexpensive, durable, and effective fencing material. Destroying the buffalo will open the plains to more efficient agriculture and ranching.

Fort Sill was established in southwestern Oklahoma as a base of operations of the Indian Wars.

1875 – On January 26, a posse representing the Pinkerton Detective Agency bombed the home belonging to Jesse James’ mother in Clay County, Missouri. The bomb blew Zerelda’s hand off and killed Jesse’s nine-year-old half-brother, Archie Peyton Samuel.

“Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker arrived in Fort Smith, Arkansas. He shortly began his 21-year stint as Judge, handing out 88 death sentences, with 79 hanged.

Wyatt Earp began his career as a law officer in Wichita, Kansas.

Deadwood, South Dakota, soon to be one of the wildest towns in the West, sprang into existence when Black Hills miners found gold on Deadwood Creek.

The U.S. Government ordered all Indians in the Black Hills and Wyoming to report to reservations or face military action.

Prospectors find lead carbonate ores, rich in silver, near present-day Leadville, Colorado.

1876 – Bat Masterson became a deputy marshal of Dodge City, Kansas, serving alongside his brother Jim.

January 10, 1876 – “Texas Joe” Horner, Tom Wagman, and Bill Redding hold up the Martin and Company Bank in Comanche, Texas. As they fled the bank, one shouted: “Charge this to the James boys!”

March 17, 1876 – The Battle of the Powder River occurred in southeastern Montana. This battle between Colonel Joseph J. Reynolds’ troops and the combined forces of the Cheyenne and Oglala Sioux was a loss for the U.S. Army and contributed to the defeats of General Crook at the Rosebud and Custer at Little Bighorn because it caused the Indians to form a massive nation for self-preservation.

June 17, 1876 – The Battle of the Rosebud occurred between the U.S. Army and the Lakota and Cheyenne Indians in Montana Territory. After six hours and many lead shots, the Indians called off the fight after the braves had fought Crook’s men to a standstill.

On June 25, 1876 – Custer and his troops were slain at the Little Bighorn.

August 1, 1876 – Colorado was admitted to the Union.

August 2, 1876 – Wild Bill Hickok was murdered in Deadwood, South Dakota, holding Aces and Eights, the dead man’s hand, in a game of poker.

September 7, 1876 – A bloody battle ensues in Northfield, Minnesota, when the James Younger gang tries to rob the First National Bank. Two members died; Cole Younger was shot 11 times but survived. Frank and Jesse James, and four others escaped.

September 30, 1876 – Twenty-three-year-old David ‘Davy’ Crockett, related to the famous Crockett of the Alamo, but a “bad guy” rather than a “good guy” was gunned down by Sheriff Rinehart and two others in the streets of Cimarron, New Mexico.

1877 – The United States violated its treaty with the Dakota Sioux by seizing the Black Hills.

Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce surrendered after the Bear Paw battle in Montana.

Crazy Horse was captured and then assassinated while in custody at Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

John Wesley Hardin, a Texas gunfighter who claims to have killed more than 40 men, was sentenced to 25 years in the Texas State Prison for the murder of a deputy sheriff. “I take no sass but sasparilla,” he once said, explaining his deadly disposition.

The Battle of the Big Hole occurred in Montana.

Bat Masterson was the Sheriff of Dodge City, Kansas.

August 17, 1877 – At 17 years old, Billy the Kid shot his first man, Frank “Windy” Cahill, in self-defense after Cahill wrestled him to the ground at a saloon in Fort Grant, Arizona. Cahill died the next day.

1878 – On January 27, Dave Rudabaugh, Mike Roarke, Dan Dement, and three other masked men attempt to rob the Santa Fe train station near Kinsley, Kansas. One man was killed.

Billy the Kid made a name for himself as a killer in the Lincoln County War in New Mexico.

In March, John Younger, a member of the Younger Gang, was killed by Pinkerton detectives in St. Clair County, Missouri.

With racial discrimination on the rise in the post-Reconstruction South, an estimated 40,000 African Americans began to migrate from the former slave states into Kansas. These so-called Exodusters establish the first all-black pioneer town at Nicodemus, Kansas.

The Bannock Indian War took place in Oregon.

On November 27, homesteaders Ami Ketchum and Luther Mitchell shot and killed cattleman Bob Olive in Nebraska. Olive’s brother led a vigilante group that hung Mitchell and Ketchum and burned their bodies. After that, Nebraska became known as the “Man Burner State.”

1879 – Wyatt Earp was a deputy U.S. Marshal for the Arizona Territory.

Dull Knife escapes from Fort Robinson, Nebraska.

The Meeker Massacre occurs at the White River Ute Reservation in Colorado.

On September 26, 1879, Deadwood, Dakota Territory, burned to the ground. Sawmill owner John Hunter supplied enough lumber to rebuild nearly all Main and Sherman Streets.

1880 – The Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad reached Santa Fe, marking the death of the Santa Fe Trail.

Apache leader Victorio was slain in Mexico.

Hide hunters have shot the buffalo to near extinction.

1881 – Legendary outlaw Billy the Kid, charged with more than 21 murders in a brief lifetime of crime, was finally brought to justice by Sheriff Pat Garrett, who trailed the Kid for more than six months before killing him with a single shot at Fort Sumner, New Mexico.

Tombstone, Arizona, Deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp, and his brothers gunned down the Clantons in a showdown at the O.K. Corral.

Sitting Bull surrendered

Helen Hunt Jackson published A Century of Dishonor, the first detailed examination of the federal government’s treatment of Native Americans in the West. Her findings shocked the nation with proof that empty promises, broken treaties, and brutality helped pave the way for white pioneers.

Late summer brought the last big cattle drive to Dodge City, Kansas. With livestock plentiful on the plains, the long trek up the Western Trail was no longer profitable, and most states began to prohibit driving out-of-state cattle across their borders. In the 15 years since Texas cowboys first hit the trail, as many as two million longhorns were driven to market in Dodge City, Kansas.

1882 – Jesse James was killed by Bob Ford in St. Joseph, Missouri.

Stagecoach bandit Black Bart was captured in California.

Adolph Bandelier began his exploration of the Ancient Puebloan ruins in New Mexico.

Judge Roy Bean opened the Jersey Lily saloon in Langtry, Texas

Free Chinese immigration ended.

Annie Oakley made her first public appearance at a sharpshooting show.

The last great Indian buffalo hunt occurred in North Dakota.

1883 – Theodore Roosevelt arrived in North Dakota to hunt buffalo and bought a ranch.

Swiss artist Karl Bodmer toured the West.

Texas purchased the Alamo from the Catholic Church to preserve it as a historic shrine.

The Northern Pacific Railroad, connecting the northwestern states to points east, was finally completed after a 19-year struggle against treacherous terrain and intermittent financing. Along the line, crews blasted a 3,850-foot tunnel through solid granite and constructed 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 took just nine days.

Buffalo Bill Cody started his Wild West Show

1884 – August 19, 1884, John H. ‘Doc’ Holliday shot bartender Billy Allen in the arm over $5 at Leadville, Colorado.

1886 – Geronimo surrendered 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 required Geronimo and his tribe to settle in Florida, where the Army hoped he could be contained.

February 18, 1886 – Dave Rudabaugh, a former member of Billy the Kid’s Dodge City Gang, was reportedly captured and decapitated by townspeople after terrorizing the village of Parral, Mexico.

December 1, 1886 – Brothers Jim and Rube Burrow robbed their first train in Bellevue, Texas.

1887 – Silver was 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 leaders were effectively dissolved. While it was in effect (1887-1934), about 60% of the remaining Indian land base, over 86 million acres, passed out of Indian ownership.

1889 – Fifty thousand homesteaders swarmed into Oklahoma on the first day of the land rush.

North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington were admitted to the Union.

Belle Starr was shot down in cold blood from behind near her Oklahoma territory home. Her killer was never found.

Butch Cassidy was involved in his first robbery, the Telluride, Colorado bank for $10,000

Belle Starr was murdered in Indian Indian Territory.

1890 – Oklahoma was organized as a territory.

Idaho and Wyoming were admitted to the Union.

The massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota, ended the Indian Wars.

Sitting Bull was murdered in a confrontation at the Standing Rock Reservation.

The U.S. Department of the Interior announced that the frontier was officially closed.

1892 – The Dalton Gang raided Coffeyville, Kansas. Grat and John were killed, and Emmett was sent to prison.

A cattlemen’s army invaded Johnson County, Wyoming, in an incident known as the Johnson County War.

1893 – Repeal of the Sherman Act demonetized silver. Many silver boomtowns went bust overnight.

1896 – Utah was admitted to the Union.

Butch Cassidy formed the “Wild Bunch,” which consisted of 15 men and four women.

1900 – Galveston, Texas, was hit by a hurricane, killing some 6,000 residents.

Jim Butler discovered silver at Tonopah, Nevada, launching a boom.

1901 – “Black gold” was 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.

1906 – The great earthquake and fire level in San Francisco killed some 700 people and left 225,000 homeless.

1907 – Indian Territory and Oklahoma Territory were joined to create the state of Oklahoma.

Tribal governments were abolished in Oklahoma.

1912 – New Mexico was admitted to the Union.

Arizona was admitted to the Union.

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

Compiled by Kathy Alexander/Legends of America, updated April 2024.

Also See: 

Adventures in the American West

American History Timelines

Explorers, Trappers & Traders

Native American Timeline

Westward Expansion & Manifest Destiny