Transportation

Steamboats transformed the Missouri Valley. Enterprising men like Joseph La Barge and Grant Marsh braved financial and mortal danger to reap fantastic profits from trade in furs and buffalo robes. But steamboats also brought smallpox, soldiers and settlers to the lands of Native Americans. Although they began as agents of commerce, steamboats came to represent confinement and war to Sitting Bull and his people. Railroads made Yankton, Bismarck and Fargo rise as ports for a few years and then drove steamboats out of business, ending an era filled with colorful characters and dramatic moments. Author Tracy Potter takes an in-depth look at the boats, trade and cultural and military relations between the United States and the native inhabitants of Dakota Territory.

Geography has conspired to make Gallup, New Mexico, a special place with unique people and a colorful history. It has been a place of struggle and extremes where cultures have clashed, mixed, and melded. Gallup is a community that is simultaneously challenging and uplifting, heartrending, and redemptive. To local Native Americans, the Navajo and Pueblo people, Gallup is located on their ancestral homeland and bordered by their sacred sites. To early settlers, Gallup was a place that permitted transportation across the continent, first by foot and horseback, then by stagecoach and railroad, and ultimately, by America's Mother Road, Route 66. With its founding, Gallup became a place where European, Asian, and Hispanic immigrants—with hands that built America—came to construct a transcontinental rail line, harvest timber, mine coal, and establish businesses, while seeking a new life among the region's original native people.