Going West

No element of America’s historical heritage has inspired more myth and legend that the opening of the American West – an epic of immense proportion.  The wild frontier days might be gone, but the lure of the West lives on in the form of personal freedom, and enduring bond between man and nature, and the restless yearning for a new and better way of life.  I like to remember important dates that help shape the West.  Somehow it keeps me tied into that time period and inspires me to strive for a new and better way of life.  I hope in a much more civilized way, but I’m not opposed to fighting for a dream or to preserve one.  On this day in 1876, the U.S. government was planning a large scale attack to remove the Indians fighting the settlement of their land by white invaders.   That slow, violent removal began way before 1876, but 1876 was a momentous year.  It started on the Rosebud River.  General Crook unexpectedly encountered the southern fringe of a huge Indian encampment.  He is attacked by almost 1500 Sioux, led by Crazy Horse.  The Indians were forced to retreat.  Crook suffers only nine soldiers killed but is forced to regroup southward at Goose Creek.  Jump ahead two years to 1878 – The Sam Bass Gang was surprised in their camp on Salt Creek in Wise County, Texas by a posse bed by Sheriff W.F. Eagan and some Texas Rangers.  The posse killed Arkansas Johnson and captured the gang’s horses.  But the rest of the gang got away on foot.  They soon stole other horses and made good their escape.  The West, it is said, never ends; both in myth and reality, it only changes.  And so it does.  I guess that’s what makes it so enticing.  Few of us want to stay the same.  We crave excitment and adventure and the changes those ambitions create.