Native Americans ordered to Sand Creek 1864

Modern day Sand Creek Massacre location, near Eads, Colorado On June 24, 1864 Colorado governor, John Evans, ordered the Native Americans living in the eastern Colorado territory to Sand Creek. Evans wanted to get rid of the Indians as part of his plan to increase his...

Johnstown Flood of 1889

Nestled in a valley 60 miles east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Johnstown, home to many steel workers, sat near the Allegheny, Little Conemaugh, and Stony Creek rivers. In 1840 a dam was built on the Little Conemaugh River about 14 miles upstream from Johnstown. The...

Forever Linking the East and the West

On May 10, 1869, the presidents of the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads met in Promontory, Utah to drive the last spike into the rail line that would connect the east and the west. The project to connect the east and west coasts started 16 years before...

S.S. Sultana Tragedy

Twelve days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, a steamboat named the Sultana, made its way upriver from Memphis, Tennessee. Its passengers consisted of Union soldiers, paroled from the prisons at Andersonville, Georgia and Cahaba, Alabama, and civilian men,...

The Pony Express

WANTED Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over eighteen. Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred. Wages $25 per week. On April 3, 1860, a rider set out from St. Joseph, Missouri, heading west. At the exact time, roughly one thousand eight...