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00:00Few places captivate us more than the Wild West.
00:12Its landscapes and legends are symbols of our nation's strength and fortitude.
00:17But the West is also where minorities discovered newfound freedom and Spanish-Americans fought
00:25for independence.
00:29It's where hundreds of different cultures thrived, and even co-existed.
00:35Our frontier was shaped by men who wanted to get rich quick, and women who conquered
00:43mountains.
00:45Out here, artists had space to think, and pioneers had room to dream.
00:54This is the breathtaking, fascinating Western Frontier.
01:24In the Midwest, at a slight bend in the Mississippi River, stands an American icon.
01:49The St. Louis Arch celebrates the city's role as the Gateway West.
01:54Missouri, and all the land east of the Rockies, had been claimed by the French.
02:01Then, in 1803, Thomas Jefferson made the Louisiana Purchase, folding St. Louis and 828,000 square
02:12miles into the United States.
02:15Today, the site is officially named the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, in his honor.
02:24Beneath the arch is a historic courthouse, the temporary home of the Museum of Westward
02:29Expansion.
02:31It tells the story of the frontier through the many voices that shaped it, from Native
02:37Americans to pioneers to explorers.
02:44Among them were Lewis and Clark, who stood nearby in 1804 and watched their flag rise.
02:54Two months later, under Jefferson's orders, they sailed up the Missouri River, on a journey
02:59that would change America.
03:03The men and their Corps of Discovery hoped to find a water route to the Pacific, to connect
03:09East with West.
03:12But it didn't exist.
03:15Instead, they discovered hundreds of new species, encountered plains that seemed endless, and
03:24reached a view that brought them sheer joy.
03:30Their journey sparked a national fascination with the West, and its promise of freedom,
03:36land, and fortune.
03:43The U.S. built trading posts along Lewis and Clark's route to capitalize on the fur trade.
03:51Fort Osage in Independence, Missouri, was one of the first.
03:56Clark himself pushed for these forts to promote trade and peace with Native Americans.
04:03The fort housed a store for trading goods, soldiers to protect it, along with a doctor
04:09and a blacksmith.
04:11Osage, along with Fort Madison in Iowa and ten others, became lifelines for rugged fur
04:17traders known as mountain men.
04:28One of the toughest was Hugh Glass.
04:33His epic story unfolded in South Dakota and inspired the 2015 film, The Revenant.
04:40Leonardo DiCaprio won an Oscar for portraying Glass, who traveled up the Missouri in the
04:451820s.
04:48Hollywood shot the movie in the Canadian Rockies, but it really took place in central South
04:53Dakota.
04:55Glass and his fellow traders traveled in small groups by keelboat.
05:01They befriended Native people called the Mandan, whose earthen homes dotted the landscape.
05:09In 1823, Glass was alone on a riverbank when a grizzly attacked.
05:16Two friends left him for dead, but Glass was still alive.
05:22He regained consciousness near what's now the South Dakota border, along the Grand River.
05:28Mauled and bleeding, Glass half-crawled, half-walked 80 miles to the Missouri, living off snake
05:34meat and animal carcasses.
05:37Then Native Americans gave him a canoe to reach the safety of Fort Kiowa.
05:45In all, Glass survived off the land for two months and covered a distance of 300 miles.
05:53Afterwards, he strode back into the wilderness and into the pages of history.
06:03Over the next decade, Glass watched the fur trade alter the West he knew.
06:09Keelboats later gave way to steamboats.
06:12They pushed more products and people west.
06:18Trading posts grew in size and stature.
06:22In 1828, fur mogul John Jacob Astor opened Fort Union in western North Dakota.
06:29This famous post drew others to the West, including a painter named George Catlin.
06:40He came here in 1832, determined to document Plains Indians on their native land.
06:49Catlin feared westward expansion would soon destroy their way of life.
06:57He spent more than five years traveling along Lewis and Clark's old route, eventually creating
07:03500 paintings.
07:08They show hunters amid buffalo herds and families moving across the Dakota plains.
07:19His landscapes capture Indians high above the Missouri and along the banks of the Yellowstone
07:26River.
07:30Catlin was especially fascinated by a vibrant village here on the Knife River.
07:36He walked between these circles when earthen homes stood above them, built by the Hidatsa
07:42people.
07:44They lived in the Dakotas for hundreds of years, welcoming traders and explorers.
07:53Catlin's huge body of work is now a part of the Smithsonian collection.
08:01But it's only a snapshot of America's native people.
08:05From Wyoming to New Mexico, tribes had thrived in the American West for generations.
08:14Their lives depended on nature, and for centuries, the frontier remained wild, despite newcomers.
08:23The 1600s brought the Spanish, who reintroduced horses to America.
08:30One hundred fifty years later, the French explored the Great Lakes region and fought
08:36the British for western land.
08:39But the 1800s would bring change on a seismic scale, and it started with covered wagons.
08:50In 1836, a group of missionaries left for what was billed as the Promised Land, Oregon.
09:06Marcus and Narcissa Whitman joined the party, which followed the Oregon Trail.
09:13The old fur trading route started in western Missouri, then stretched twenty-five hundred
09:18miles to Oregon's fabled farmland.
09:21Today, that journey would cross five states.
09:27Before the Whitman party, no women, or wagons, had attempted the trip.
09:32No one thought they could make it over the steep South Pass.
09:36The easiest route through the Rockies, but Narcissa Whitman pushed through.
09:42The frontier was now open to families.
09:46Soon, wagon ruts on the Oregon Trail grew deeper.
09:51Tens of thousands of homesteaders began forging west, including Amelia Knight.
09:57She left Iowa, newly pregnant, with her husband and seven children.
10:03They followed the Platte River, the source of drinking water and disease on the trail.
10:11In what's now Nebraska, the Knights looked for landmarks, like jailhouse and courthouse
10:17rocks, and Scott's Bluff.
10:23Out here, they feared Indian attacks.
10:27And the biggest killers were river crossings and gun accidents.
10:42After two months, the Knights made it to Wyoming, where they passed Fort Laramie.
10:48This fur trading post-turned-army fort was the last stop before the Rockies.
10:55The government built a series of these forts along the trail to manage tensions between
11:00whites and Indians.
11:02At Fort Laramie, travelers could trade and camp before forging ahead.
11:09Afterwards, Amelia climbed through the Rockies, seven months pregnant.
11:18Once she made it into Oregon, she gave birth on the trail, then crossed the Columbia River
11:24carrying her newborn.
11:29Five months after they left, the Knights traded their oxen for a farm and finally settled
11:34in the Willamette Valley.
11:38This 150-mile river valley was the main attraction in Oregon, and still is.
11:45It formed millions of years ago when a massive flood left behind rich soil and the Willamette
11:52River.
11:55Oregon began to grow up around the valley and its agriculture.
12:01From it, farmers shipped their goods to Portland, which swelled into the state's biggest city.
12:10Settlers founded the town of Salem at the heart of the valley, where they built their
12:15capital.
12:18Today, a pioneer proudly stands above it, a reminder of the men and women who altered
12:26this part of the West.
12:37In the mid-1800s, the frontier included what's now the Midwest, and the fertile land that
12:44would become Iowa.
12:47The state got its name from the Iowa people, who lived in the lush river valleys of the
12:52Mississippi and the Missouri.
12:56In the 1830s, tribes watched steamboats full of men churn by, in a precursor to the California
13:03Gold Rush.
13:05But these prospectors were looking for lead.
13:10They had heard about the rich deposits along the Mississippi, at a place called Horseshoe
13:14Bluff.
13:16Decades earlier, a fur trader named Julian Dubuque began mining the area, along with
13:22the Meskwaki tribe.
13:24Together, they built a successful business, trading with Europeans who needed lead for
13:29bullets and tools.
13:33Dubuque became Iowa's first European settler, and married a Native American woman.
13:39When he died in 1810, the Meskwaki buried him where this monument stands, with full
13:46tribal honors.
13:51In the coming decades, thousands of prospectors sailed past the site, to the town of Dubuque.
14:00They turned the small community into a thriving gateway to the West.
14:05Some worked on the banks of the Mississippi, in a structure called a shot tower.
14:11It was built in the 1850s to turn lead into shotgun pellets.
14:17From the top, workers poured molten lead through a grid.
14:21As it fell, the lead formed a ball.
14:25It landed in water and cooled, into 19th century ammunition.
14:32Today, this is the only shot tower still standing in the American West.
14:44Iowa was also home to a man who helped shape our view of the West.
14:50Winterset, Iowa, is the birthplace of John Wayne.
14:55He was born Marion Robert Morrison, on this corner lot in 1907.
15:01In Hollywood, he became John Wayne, the quintessential American cowboy.
15:07Before Wayne, Westerns were B-movies, often made for kids.
15:13That changed with his 1939 film, Stagecoach.
15:20It was filmed across the country, in Monument Valley.
15:26This iconic landscape sits on the Arizona-Utah border, in the Navajo Nation.
15:33Oscar winning director, John Ford, brought Wayne and the cast here to make a new kind
15:39of Western.
15:40One with a decent budget, and a sophisticated plot.
15:46Ford spent four days in the valley, filming landscapes that would mesmerize audiences.
15:55The Navajo men and women served as actors and crew.
16:01Ford became synonymous with Westerns, and this became his preferred set.
16:09He filmed six more movies here, and the Navajo made him a member of their tribe.
16:16Most later said, the honor meant more to him than his Oscars.
16:30In the 1940s and 50s, Westerns became a box office hit.
16:36Wayne ultimately appeared in 83.
16:40But the genre often oversimplified the West, portraying it as a land of only cowboys and
16:45Indians.
16:47Reality was more complicated.
16:51The frontier had been a melting pot for centuries, especially in Texas.
16:57Spanish explorers arrived here in the 1600s.
17:01Native Americans greeted them by shouting, Tejas, or friends, giving Texas its name.
17:09In the 1600s, the Spanish began building a network of missions that also served as forts
17:16San Jose Mission, in San Antonio, was the grandest.
17:21Each one included a church, farm, and something new to Texas, a cattle ranch.
17:29On the grounds, missionaries pushed natives to learn Spanish and Catholicism, along with
17:35trade skills and cattle herding.
17:39The Spanish ruled for more than a century, until Mexico fought for and won its independence.
17:48But Texas had a problem.
17:51It was big and isolated, so white settlers steered clear.
17:58To attract pioneers, the Mexican government offered up good land at low prices.
18:05Millions of Americans poured in and, after a few decades, decided they wanted their independence.
18:17Texas rebels, including Spanish Americans, drove the Mexican army out and made an old
18:22mission their home base.
18:25It was called the Alamo.
18:28In 1836, Mexico's president descended on the San Antonio Fort.
18:34More than 180 rebels held their ground for 13 days, against 4,000 soldiers.
18:42When the bloody siege ended, nearly all the rebels were dead.
18:49The leader of the Texas army, General Sam Houston, was 70 miles away when he got word
18:55of the Alamo.
18:57He led hundreds of rookie soldiers on a hasty retreat east, away from the Mexican army.
19:04The Texans spent a month fleeing and training on the run.
19:09Then, outside what's now Houston, they launched a surprise attack.
19:15Here, on the San Jacinto battlefield, the rebels yelled,
19:19Remember the Alamo!
19:21and descended on the Mexicans during their afternoon siesta.
19:26The Texans won in 18 minutes.
19:31Afterwards, Texas became an independent republic, symbolized by a lone star.
19:41Sam Houston was elected president and had a new city named after him.
19:48Nine years later, Texas joined the Union.
19:56Over the next 15 years, nearly half a million newcomers settled in the state.
20:07They made their living farming and herding cattle, carrying on the Spanish tradition.
20:14In the 1860s, cowboys emerged, men who earned a living driving cattle north.
20:22After two decades, the open range was sliced up with the advent of barbed wire.
20:29With it, cattle could be contained, and old-school cowboys were no longer needed.
20:37The cowboy era ended, and the myth-making began.
20:45Many versions of rodeos started, spreading to Wyoming, New Mexico, and Kansas.
20:52At first, cowboys gathered for informal contests, roping and riding.
20:59The first modern rodeo was likely orchestrated in 1882 by Buffalo Bill Cody.
21:06His famous Wild West show brought the frontier east, and even overseas.
21:12Cody's show, along with dime store novels, transformed cowboys into larger-than-life
21:19characters, ones that later dominated movies, radio, and television.
21:29In the 1980s, one well-known cowboy emerged here at South Fork.
21:35J.R. Ewing and his clan lived here for more than a decade in the hit drama, Dallas.
21:42Hollywood came to Parker, Texas in 1978 to film what was supposed to be a miniseries.
21:49But Dallas was so popular, the cast and crew came back for 13 seasons.
21:56The show brought droves of tourists to South Fork, and in 1984, the fed-up owners moved
22:02out.
22:04It's now a tourist destination.
22:12Today Texas is probably best known for oil.
22:17Native Americans and Spaniards found it first in the Gulf of Mexico, but it was of little
22:22use.
22:24Drilling crews rediscovered oil in 1894, when it was in high demand for fuel and heat.
22:33One of the biggest finds was in Spindletop, where oil once shot 100 feet into the air.
22:40The state's oil industry took off, transforming the Texas landscape.
22:48Small towns swelled into cities, and cattle pastures were replaced by oil wells.
22:55Today, the Permian Basin in West Texas is the nation's biggest producer of crude oil.
23:02This desolate scrubland was once an ancient sea.
23:07When it dried up millions of years ago, the sea life left rich deposits of petroleum underground.
23:14In the 1950s, those deposits drew businessman George Bush and his wife Barbara to the town
23:20of Midland.
23:22They lived in this house with their four children, including George W.
23:28W eventually settled in Midland with his own family, before donning a cowboy hat all the
23:34way to the White House.
23:37The frontier has shaped political leaders and religious ones.
23:43In 1847, Brigham Young and 150 others entered Utah, looking for a place to practice their
23:50new religion, Mormonism.
23:54By then, the Mormons, also called Latter-day Saints, had attempted to settle in four states,
24:00including Nauvoo, Illinois.
24:03But they repeatedly clashed with non-believers over customs, politics, and land.
24:10In 1846, Young decided to leave the states for good.
24:16He chose a valley beyond the U.S. border, in Mexican territory, that's now part of Utah.
24:24Young and his followers walked 1,000 miles and over two mountain ranges to reach the
24:31Great Salt Lake.
24:35When his followers saw it, after eight months of traveling, they were skeptical.
24:42But Young believed that this was an anointed spot, where isolation would help Mormons bond
24:49and thrive.
24:52Within a year, 16,000 Mormons followed.
24:59Within 30 years, LDS followers started nearly 400 communities throughout Utah.
25:08Among them were the parents of a future outlaw named Bobby Parker.
25:14In 1879, Parker's British-born family started this homestead in southern Utah.
25:22His devout parents and 12 siblings struggled to survive, and at 13, Parker began working
25:29at a nearby ranch.
25:32He met a charismatic cattle rustler named Mike Cassidy, who taught him how to ride,
25:39shoot, and steal.
25:42Over the next decade, Parker drifted, working as a miner and a cowboy.
25:48But his first heist, here in Telluride, Colorado, would make him famous.
25:55Parker and two friends robbed a bank, then escaped into Utah's canyons, using a relay
26:00of horses.
26:02Afterwards, Parker changed his name to Butch Cassidy, to spare his Mormon mother.
26:10He became a notorious bank and train robber, hiding out in what's now Canyonlands National
26:15Park.
26:17Surprisingly, in 19 years of crime, Cassidy never killed anyone during his robberies,
26:24a feat some attribute to his religious roots.
26:30Four hundred miles west of Utah, a Swiss immigrant transformed the country, completely by accident.
26:41In the 1840s, John Sutter built this fort in what's now Sacramento, California.
26:49He went on to amass more than 150,000 acres here in the Central Valley, and dreamed of
26:55building a town called New Helvetia, or New Switzerland.
27:00Sutter hired a carpenter named John Marshall to build a water-powered sawmill on the American
27:06River.
27:08In 1848, Marshall spotted specks of gold in the river, where this memorial to him now
27:15stands.
27:17Marshall and Sutter tried to keep the discovery secret, but word got out.
27:22Within a year, 90,000 people flooded in from around the world, hoping to get rich quick.
27:29They became known as the 49ers, named after the year the gold rushers descended on California.
27:37Ironically, Sutter didn't make a fortune.
27:41The prospectors overtook his land and livestock, ultimately ruining him.
27:55To reach Sutter's land, many came through the port of San Francisco, then a town of
28:01around 800.
28:03By the end of 1849, the population reached 25,000, and included free blacks, Chileans,
28:11Germans, Chinese, and many more.
28:15The city grew so fast, the infrastructure couldn't keep up, forever leaving San Francisco
28:21with narrow streets.
28:24As people poured in, entrepreneurs realized they could make a fortune.
28:29These streets were soon home to Wells Fargo Bank, Levi Strauss, and Ghirardelli Chocolate,
28:36all selling goods and services at gold rush prices.
28:45Sutter's Mill was the first in a series of strikes that kept people coming to California.
28:52Over the next two years, there were six more major discoveries in the region.
28:58They all sat in the California gold fields.
29:01In these two areas, huge amounts of gold had washed down over eons from the surrounding
29:07mountains.
29:08By 1854, Northern California's untapped land drew an estimated 300,000 people, with
29:16far-reaching effects.
29:19Loggers cut down forests of redwoods to build homes and mills.
29:24One failed 49er reinvented himself as a lumber baron.
29:29He built this grand home, called the Carson Mansion, in the town of Eureka.
29:36To keep California's riches, Congress hastily made it a state in 1850.
29:43Sacramento formed practically overnight and became the capital of the Golden State.
29:54But after five years, California's gold began to wane, and prospectors moved on.
30:03In Nevada's western hills, men discovered gold and silver.
30:10The Comstock Lode was the nation's first big silver discovery, named after the prospector
30:15who claimed it.
30:18Failed 49ers and other miners descended on Nevada, but unlike California, these riches
30:25could only be reached with the muscle of a mining company.
30:29Men built what's called the Combination Shaft, which plunged a depth equal to nine football
30:34fields.
30:36Underground, miners worked in 130-degree heat six days a week.
30:42Despite the dangers, thousands signed up for the high pay.
30:47They received four dollars a day, nearly twice the going rate.
30:58The Comstock miners set up a crude camp that became the boomtown of Virginia City.
31:05Saloons, opium dens, brothels, and even a few churches popped up.
31:13One of the first hotels, the Gold Hill, was built in 1860 and is still operating today.
31:26Virginia City grew to 18,000 and attracted a young man from Missouri.
31:32His name was Samuel Clemens.
31:37Clemens had realized mining wasn't for him and began writing for a local newspaper.
31:45In what's now a museum, he worked for the Territorial Enterprise and first used his
31:49pen name, Mark Twain.
31:54For two years, Twain wrote news stories and tall tales about Comstock until he moved on
32:00to California.
32:03Virginia City also drew a failed 49er named George Hearst.
32:08He made a fortune, lived in this grand home, then became a U.S. Senator.
32:15His only child and heir was William Randolph Hearst, who built Hearst Castle in San Simeon,
32:24California.
32:26The Comstock load put Nevada on the map.
32:30Virginia City got a railroad, which transported raw material to nearby Carson City.
32:37This small town became the capital of the Silver State, the site of a U.S. Mint, and
32:43a pit stop for the rugged riders of the Pony Express.
32:51They galloped past Carson City along this road, carrying letters cross-country in days
32:57instead of months.
32:59From St. Joseph, Missouri, a relay system of riders sped west, along the same paths
33:05as pioneers.
33:07They carried letters to the growing farming, cow, and mining towns before arriving in Sacramento,
33:14California.
33:16The ruins of one Nevada Pony Express station are still visible today, in Sand Springs.
33:23Riders stopped at a station every 10 miles for water and a fresh horse.
33:28Nearly 200 structures once stood across the west.
33:33They made the service fast, but costly.
33:36The Pony Express lost up to $30 on every letter.
33:42But finances didn't bring down the service.
33:46The telegraph did.
33:48Here in St. Joseph, Missouri, the operation closed after only 19 months.
33:57The 1860s ushered in the West we all know, filled with colorful characters like Jesse
34:04James.
34:08He was born in 1847 on this small farm in Kearney, Missouri.
34:14When he was 16, Civil War gripped the country, and James joined a guerrilla group that backed
34:19the Confederacy.
34:22Jesse and his brother Frank launched a series of vicious attacks on Union soldiers.
34:33After the war, they turned to robbery, often killing innocent bystanders.
34:41In 1866, it's believed they robbed this former bank in Liberty, Missouri.
34:48It was the first heist of its kind during peacetime.
34:54The thieves fled with $60,000 and killed a witness.
35:00The James brothers and their gang would go on to rob 25 banks and trains, often bragging
35:06to newspaper reporters afterwards.
35:09Finally, in Missouri's capital of Jefferson City, the governor placed a $10,000 bounty
35:16on Jesse's head.
35:18He was living under an alias in this St. Joseph house when a fellow gang member shot him to
35:25collect the reward.
35:28Jesse's body was returned to his family farm and buried on its grounds.
35:39During Jesse James' lifetime, the nation was transformed by the Transcontinental Railroad.
35:54Trains began rumbling cross-country in 1869, a journey that once took five months now lasted
36:01just ten days.
36:03The engineering feat started in 1863.
36:08From Omaha, the Union Pacific pushed west, using Irish immigrants and Civil War vets
36:14to lay tracks.
36:16In Sacramento, the Central Pacific worked its way east, relying on thousands of Chinese
36:23laborers.
36:24After seven back-breaking years, the workers met in the middle, in Promontory, Utah.
36:34Reminders of those days still stand in the West.
36:38One of the most unique is in southern Wyoming.
36:42This granite pyramid pays tribute to Oaks and Oliver Ames, two businessmen who led the
36:48Union Pacific Arm.
36:51Oaks was a congressman, and his brother Oliver was a railroad tycoon.
36:56But they were also crooks.
36:59To build the railroad, they made underhanded dealings with congressmen that cost taxpayers
37:05millions.
37:06Their unethical practices were exposed, but neither man was punished.
37:13After they died, their company built this memorial along what was once the Union Pacific
37:18line.
37:20The tracks have since been moved, leaving this odd pyramid out in the dust.
37:37Thirty miles east of the pyramid, the town of Cheyenne became a railroad hub.
37:44The Union Pacific built this Grand Depot in 1887.
37:50It was the first of many stations designed by the famous architect Henry Van Brunt, and
37:56one of only two still standing.
38:05Cheyenne was also a hub for women's suffrage.
38:11Lawmakers here were the first in the nation to grant women the right to vote, fifty years
38:16before the 19th Amendment.
38:20Afterwards, a 69-year-old housewife named Louisa Swain cast her ballot in Laramie, becoming
38:27the first woman in the country to legally vote.
38:36Wyoming became known as the Equality State, and a place where women could break new ground.
38:44Women here were the first to serve on a jury, the first in judicial office, and the first
38:50to hold a governorship.
38:53Women in Jackson, Wyoming also made history when they took over the town.
38:58In 1920, a group known as the Petticoat Rulers assumed all political offices.
39:05They pulled off what their male predecessors could not, by cleaning up the town, collecting
39:11debts, and working together.
39:17In Wyoming, the U.S. government also tried to crack down on outlaws.
39:23In 1872, the U.S. opened the Wyoming Territorial Prison, one of three penitentiaries they'd
39:30build out West.
39:33Its cells held thieves, murderers, and train robbers, including Butch Cassidy.
39:40He was a model prisoner, released after just 18 months.
39:45Afterwards, Cassidy formed the Wild Bunch, the most successful train robbing gang in
39:51history.
39:58Some of the West's most colorful characters gathered in Deadwood, South Dakota.
40:04Among them was Nate Love, a slave-turned-cowboy who arrived in this mining town in 1876.
40:13He likely rubbed shoulders with Wild Bill Hickok, an outlaw-turned-lawman who frequented
40:19the gambling halls.
40:22Hickok was shot and killed here, in Saloon No. 10, while playing poker.
40:28He was buried in the nearby Mount Moriah Cemetery, also the final resting place of the folk
40:34hero, Calamity Jane.
40:37Both characters recently came to life again in the hit TV series, Deadwood.
40:47The American Southwest was once home to the legendary outlaw, Billy the Kid.
40:54He's known for crimes in New Mexico, but Billy is believed to be a native New Yorker.
41:02He was born William McCarty, and pushed west on the Santa Fe Trail at the age of 14.
41:10His Irish mother wanted her family to escape factory life, and hoped they could mine for
41:15silver.
41:16They passed army forts, like this crumbling one in northeastern New Mexico, before arriving
41:21in Santa Fe.
41:24This was new territory for the U.S., acquired after the Mexican-American War.
41:31McCarty entered a world that was more Spanish than American, and he embraced it, learning
41:37to speak the language and dressing in the Spanish style.
41:41A year after arriving, his mother died.
41:45Alone and desperate, McCarty began stealing to survive.
41:50He'd go on to kill nine men as a young man, and became known as Billy the Kid.
41:58Billy was arrested repeatedly, but always escaped.
42:02Then lawman Pat Garrett locked him up at the county courthouse in Lincoln.
42:08At 21, Billy was sentenced to hang.
42:12The Kid managed to escape one last time, by killing his two guards.
42:18Billy fled into the New Mexico plains, but Garrett found him and shot him, ending the
42:24life of Billy the Kid, and transforming him into a legend.
42:35The wilds of New Mexico were also home to the Apache, nomadic people who migrated along
42:42the Rio Grande.
42:46For centuries, they survived hunting pronghorns and buffalo.
42:52The Apaches were known for their vicious attacks on settlers and the U.S. Army.
42:58One of their most feared warriors was a man named Geronimo.
43:09Legend has it that U.S. troops chased him into southern Oklahoma, where he rode off
43:14this cliff and escaped in the river below.
43:21It turns out that's a tall tale, but the truth is even harder to believe.
43:27Geronimo managed to elude 9,000 captors for three months.
43:33He finally surrendered in 1886, and soldiers took him to this guardhouse in Fort Sill,
43:40Oklahoma.
43:41He spent the rest of his life as a pumpkin farmer.
43:47Geronimo's capture marked the end of an era.
43:51He was the last Native American to resist the U.S. Army, and the last to be forced onto
43:57a reservation.
43:59Afterwards, Oklahoma, the last remaining Indian territory, was open to settlers.
44:06In April 1889, a cannon fired, and the Oklahoma Land Rush began.
44:13A moment marked by this statue in Oklahoma City.
44:1750,000 people flooded in and kept coming.
44:23A year later, the U.S. declared the frontier officially closed.
44:30Farms and ranches created a quilt across the West.
44:36Towns matured into cities, and people were everywhere.
44:41Americans believed the nation had achieved its destiny, stretching from coast to coast.
44:49But an itch of pioneering spirit remained.
44:59The country shifted its gaze hundreds of miles north, to Alaska.
45:12For 83 years, this was Russian territory, and reminders of their influence are still
45:18present today.
45:21This Orthodox church stands in Sitka, once the capital of Russia's Alaskan land.
45:29But in 1867, plagued by war and debt, the Russians sold Alaska to the United States
45:37for $7 million, or two cents an acre.
45:43Most of Alaska's residents were native people, including the Aleuts and Inuit.
45:49Then came the Klondike Gold Rush.
45:54In 1897, 100,000 men, called Stampeders, began pouring into Alaskan ports, including Skagway.
46:03One of them was Jack London, who traveled 2,000 miles from San Francisco.
46:10He rested and bought supplies here before setting out for the Klondike, a journey that
46:15could take more than four months.
46:21From Skagway, London faced the 33-mile Chilkoot Trail, a nearly vertical ascent into the mountains.
46:29He spent 20 days hiking back and forth, hauling up 1,500 pounds of food, often in freezing
46:36temperatures.
46:38Some exhausted prospectors simply abandoned supplies, like these canoes, shortly after
46:43they started.
46:46After the Chilkoot, it was still 600 miles to the Klondike.
46:51London would never make it.
46:54He contracted scurvy and was forced to return home, but he didn't leave empty-handed.
47:01His trip inspired the book The Call of the Wild, about a sled dog who, against all odds,
47:08conquers the last frontier.
47:15Another former Stampeder made his mark in southern Alaska, in the remote Wrangell Mountains.
47:23In the early 1900s, engineer Stephen Birch founded and built the Kennecott Copper Mine
47:28in town, at the base of a glacier.
47:33At the time, copper was in high demand.
47:36The government needed it for munitions and growing cities.
47:40Birch spent a decade constructing the state-of-the-art facility, which had electricity and refrigeration
47:46before many towns in the lower 48.
47:51Despite the location, 600 men came to work here.
47:54It was the highest-paying mine in the country.
48:00Miners and copper rumbled over the Miles Glacier Bridge, one of a dozen built to bring the
48:06railroad to Kennecott.
48:09By 1938, the copper ran out and the mine was abandoned.
48:15Sixty years later, the Park Service took it over.
48:20Today, this is the nation's best-preserved mine, and the entrance to our largest national
48:27park, Wrangell-St. Elias.
48:35It's one of eight massive parks in Alaska, designated to keep parts of the West wild.
48:43Humpback whales, mountain goats, and more than 400 species of birds are reminders of
48:51what America used to look like.
48:55In Alaska, species that once thrived in the lower 48 have room to roam.
49:02Thirty thousand brown bears live here.
49:05Grizzlies romp through the interior.
49:10Their larger cousins thrive on the coast.
49:13And Kodiaks live on Kodiak Island in the Gulf of Alaska.
49:18They migrated from the mainland 12,000 years ago.
49:22When the last ice age ended, the bears became isolated.
49:30White settlers hunted the animals well into the 20th century.
49:35In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge, protecting
49:43the bears and 1.9 million acres.
49:48Today, Alaska's brown bears are helping scientists.
49:52NASA is studying how the animals retain muscle and bone mass during hibernation.
49:59The research could lead to extended space flights and the next final frontier.
50:12Alaska's pioneering days, like America's, are a thing of the past.
50:19But our fascination with the West lives on.
50:24Today, filmmakers still head to Monument Valley to shoot westerns.
50:30Presidential hopefuls still wear cowboy hats to come across as good guys.
50:36And consumers still want stories from the West, in novels and on TV.
50:43No matter how it's packaged, the frontier continues to loom large in America as a place
50:50full of big personalities, big ideas, and even bigger dreams.