Battle of Long Island
Dawn crept over the wooded hills of western Long Island, a thin gray light revealing the damp fields and narrow roads where the fate of the young Revolution was about to pivot. The air was heavy,...
August 20: 1794: The Battle of Fallen Timbers Spells the End of the “Native Confederacy” at the Hands of General “Mad” Anthony Wayne
The morning of August 20, 1794 broke humid and gray over the Maumee River, in present-day Indiana and Ohio. A storm had torn through the forest through which the American Legion under the command...
Wingfield’s War Reshapes Nevada Mining Industry, Following Labor Strife at the Goldfield Mines
Founded in 1902, the town of Goldfield, Nevada experienced a meteoric rise over the next five years to become a center of the mining industry In the United States. By the winter of 1907, Goldfield...
Collis P. Huntington: One of the Big Four” Tycoons of the Western Railroad Industry
Collis P. Huntington was an important American businessman and railroad leader during the 1800s – one of the “Big Four” tycoons of the western railroad industry. He was born in 1821 in...
The Proclamation to the People of the Territory of Arizona: August 1, 1861
After the expansion of the New Mexico Territory in 1853, the fate of the nearby Arizona Territory was in question. In 1856, a petition was presented to the U.S. Congress requesting organization of...
The Controversial History of Nevada’s Comstock Lode
The American Revolution produced a number of unlikely war heroes who came out of nowhere to become leading generals in the Continental Army. Henry Knox, for example, was a bookseller in Boston who...
The Transcontinental Telegraph: A New Era of Connection
When the transcontinental telegraph was completed on October 24, 1861, it did more than replace the Pony Express — it reshaped how a nation communicated. For nonprofits today, its story offers a...
Pecos Bill: The Wildest Cowboy of American Folklore
Pecos Bill stands tall—larger than life—in the landscape of American frontier folklore. Born from the campfire tales of cowhands in the late 19th century, Bill embodies the boundless imagination...
The Pacific Railway Act: A Public Investment That Transformed a Nation
Although Americans tend to forget how critical our railway system was to the development of the American West, the Pacific Railway Act of 1862 stands as a defining example of how public investment...
The Bear Flag Revolt: A Brief, Turbulent Bid for California Independence
In the summer of 1846, a small frontier uprising in the northern California settlement of Sonoma briefly reshaped the destiny of the American West. Known as the Bear Flag Revolt, this short‑lived...
