In the mid-19th century, the Oregon Trail was a well-traveled path to the Western U.S. and was full of hardship. Death was common and sometimes brutal.
In the 1800s, the Oregon Trail was used by thousands of settlers to seek a brighter life in the West. The complex history behind the journey might surprise you.
The idea of childhood today is far different from what it was like during the time of the Old West, a time in which frontier families were often on the move.
While Hollywood gets some of the American West correct, it also glamorizes it. Here's a bit of truth about what it was like to live and work in the Wild West.
Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people played key roles in settling the American West. Read on for the untold truth of LGBTQ+ people in the Old West.
Wyatt Earp is certainly the most famous of the Earps, but he had seven other siblings, some of whom were also at the O.K. Corral. Here is the Earp family tree.
The Red Onion Saloon in Skagway, Alaska, is said the be the most haunted places in the state, thanks to a few ghosts who notoriously roam the premises.
In the mid-1800s, many people set their sights on a new life in the Oregon Territory. However, to get there, settlers had to brave the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail.
Learn enough about medical treatments in the Wild West and you'll quickly be grateful for modern medicine. Pretty much anyone could call themselves a doctor.
Homes had to be a minimum of 10 by 12 feet in size and had to include a glass window. The provisions that encouraged people to move west also discouraged them.
Lost treasures. Unsolved murders. Disappearances. These stories continue to intrigue lovers of the Old West. Despite today's technology, many still remain open.
The madams who ruled during the 1800s and early 1900s were more than just sex workers. They were actually businesswomen who contributed to their communities.
Christmas traditions in America follow many of the same customs of well over a century ago. But what about celebrating the yuletide season in the old Wild West?
The bounty hunters that were despised by outlaws, lawmen, and citizens alike for making a living off hunting down fugitives isn't really historically accurate.
The Oregon Trail was mostly peaceful. But sometimes violence broke out between settlers and Indigenous people, such as the deadly Utter-Van Ornum Massacre.
Such was the case with the amazingly comically named Bald Knobbers, a band of vigilante costume-wearers who, as cited by Legends of America, prowled southwest Missouri in the years following the Civil War, taking the law into their own hands.
In the Wild West, deputies of the U.S. Marshals Service were tasked with law enforcement and capturing fugitives, and their jobs could be quite dangerous.
During the late 19th century, as more Americans came west, they fought, killed, and pushed the Natives from their homelands to government-run reservations.