The legendary Donner settlers endured extreme hardship en route to their own promised land.
The prominent characters of the West, including Wyatt Earp, Billy the Kid, Jesse James and Geronimo, are portrayed by re-enactors.
James Douglas, who brought law and order to British Columbia's mining towns, and other pioneers who tamed the Canadian West.
The Army restores order between cattle ranchers and homesteaders in 1892 Wyoming.
In the 1860s, Kit Carson and the U.S. government forced 8,000 Navajo Indians to march to a New Mexico reservation.
The career of colorful frontiersman James Butler Hickok included stints as a lawman, scout, gunslinger and professional gambler.
Bent's Old Fort and Forts Union and Laramie are among the fortifications where pioneers found refuge during the push west in the 19th century.
Steamboats open transportation for Western settlers.
Chief Joseph leads the Nez Perce to sanctuary in Canada.
Thousands brave mountains and Yukon River rapids to reach Klondike gold fields.
Sensational news stories and dime novels make heroes of Calamity Jane and Wild Bill Hickok.
The Earp brothers wear badges and spill blood.
John Wesley Powell led the first major exploration of the Colorado River in 1869.
Controversy surrounds the deaths of bank robbers Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Early paleontologists Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker deal with hostile Indians, creationists and professional rivalry.
The story of Chicago, a desolate prairie town that became the second-largest city in the United States.
Gen. George Crook fights Indians then, in peacetime, promotes their cause.
Virginia City's silver mines made it a 19th-century boomtown.
Forced by settlers to migrate, the Northern Cheyenne allied with the Sioux, but gold soon made peace difficult to maintain.
The Southern Cheyenne migrate to Colorado; Chivington and the Sand Creek Massacre.
An attempt to determine whether Gen. George Custer was a military hero or egotistical renegade.
Destruction of American Indian culture follows 19th-century battles.
Profiles of Sam Houston and Stephen Austin, founders of the state of Texas.
Elizabeth Bacon "Libbie" Custer encourages the legend of husband George Armstrong Custer.
The historic explorations of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from 1803-06.
Red Cloud leads the Oglala Lakota in war and in peace.
The early railroad barons of the Old West: Leland Stanford, Collis Huntington, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins.
Cattle barons hoard power by controlling large tracts of land and livestock.
San Francisco evolved from pioneer town to frontier urban center.
Legendary warrior Crazy Horse's role in the Sioux victory over Custer at Little Bighorn.
The truth behind the stories of the West's most infamous outlaws, including Billy the Kid, John Wesley Hardin and Jesse James.
The gold rush makes fortunes for a few but spells disaster for most.
Mormons try to cover up the murders of 128 pioneers in southern Utah.
Kit Carson, Jim Bridger and John Wesley Powell guide pioneers.
The Texas Rangers track vicious criminals.
Famous acts of thievery in the Old West include train robberies and bank heists.
A New Mexico murder leads to more violence and Billy the Kid's downfall.
The almost surreal deterioration of Gold Rush boomtowns into abandoned shells of timber and sagebrush.
American Indians who turned against their own by joining the U.S. Army during the frontier era.
In 1845, President James Polk annexed Texas from Mexico, igniting a two-year conflict.
Former Confederate soldiers embark on a crime spree in the American West and become known as the James Gang.
Buffalo Bill and others entertain audiences worldwide.
Former Confederate soldiers embark on a crime spree in the American West, becoming known as the James Gang.
Exotic and eccentric women; Calamity Jane; Belle Starr; Annie Oakley.
Separating the facts from the myths surrounding the defense of the Alamo in 1836.
Lawmen-turned-robbers, the Daltons die violently in the 1892 Coffeyville Raid.
Buffalo Bill's traveling show influences perception of the Old West.
The sometimes fragile art of law enforcement in the Old West.
A look at the Northwest Mounted Police reveals why, in contrast to the American West, the Canadian frontier was settled with little violence.
The colorful and dangerous history of the wagon train, the means by which the frontier was extended.
In the 1870s, Apache warrior Geronimo launches raids on white settlers after being forced from Arizona.
Stagecoach drivers and Pony Express riders braved robberies and Indian attacks while forging a link between East and West.
Lawmen, outlaws, gunfights and loose morals give Dodge City its reputation.
Allan Pinkerton starts a detective agency and founds the Secret Service.
The American Indian warrior spent his entire youth mastering the bows, arrows, lances and clubs that would make him a powerful fighter.
Points west of the Mississippi saw bloody battles during the Civil War.
"Shady ladies" arrived at mining camps and boomtowns on the frontier well ahead of their more respectable sisters.
How Remington, Colt, and Smith & Wesson tamed the American frontier.