Farewell Frontier

Theodore Roosevelt was an outdoors man, rancher, conservationist,  and on March 4, 1905, he became President of the United States.  His inauguration parade was all western - with cowboys,  Custer's 7th Cavalry (minus Custer), and a group of Indian Chiefs including the old Commanche Ouanah and the Apache, Geronimo.  The whole thing was a tribute to the American past, the frontier in which all Americans in one way or another had been a part.

Even a decade before, the great open spaces in the West were rapidly disappearing.  The frontier, ever shifting westward had run out of room and had no where else to go.  The 1980 Census stated that "there can hardly be said to be a frontier line."

After a century of settling the frontier, the many results of the lost of open space affected all.  For the Indian, it was defeat, destruction and despair.  For the everyone else who loved wide open space,  it was the vast spreading farms, big cities, and ribbons of rail track - all eliminating the wild frontier.  The colonization of the Great West was complete.

Many believed that the western settler was the world's first truly free man - not just because of the Constitution's rights, but free because of the earth the settler farmed, the life he led.  The poor escaped to the West, the oppressed, and those with no hope escaped to start over with land, opportunity and hope.  The frontier exerted influence all the way back to the East where old society rules and habits lessened and self-sufficiency seemed to take root once more.  Instead of East going West, the West came to the East.

Today the frontier is not forgotten almost a century and a half later.  Rodeos, television, movies, even blue jeans, once the uniform of the cowpoke, is now a fashion statement.  Optimism, orneriness, generosity, courage, innovation - all remind us that there once was a vast wilderness where men and women could go to dream great dreams and do great deeds. 

Next time...A Christmas Log Cabin Dinner
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Today in Pioneer History:  "On December 20, 1803, the French surrender at New Orleans without a shot fired and turn over the city to the United States.