The Eads Bridge is completed, giving St. Louis its first rail link across the Mississippi. Last clash between settlers and Indians occurs in western Kansas. Use for medicinal and certain other purposes was exempted. Jesse James is shot to death by one of his confederates at his Clay County farm.
Fire destroys Chicago.
The country enters its greatest depression so far. Prices plummet for crops and cattle. Plains are hit with locusts and drought. Sioux, angered by influx of prospectors, defeat and kill Gen. George Custer at Battle of the Little Big Horn. But within months they surrender.