The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1899-12-09
Passing of the olainsmen.
Globe Democrat.


way, formed part of the wild
life of the country west of the
Mississippi. The conditions
in the pioneering days west Of
the great river differed widely
in some RESPECTS from those
which prevailed between that
watercourse and the Alleghen-
les. and these conditions begot
Tor necessintedia difference in
the qualities Of the men who
participated in them. The
horse figured more and tile
canoe, pirouge and other sort
of water cor veyanccs less be
tween the Mississippi and the
Pacific than other side. Irv-
ing, in his bonneville" which
was written when st. Louis
was a frontier town. grasped
this difference when he said
that the life of the far West
had produced a set of men al
together distinct from the pio-
nee"s, hunters, and trapperS Of
the older section of the coun-
try. The equestrian exercises
he remarked, in, (Which they
(tl1e men of the country they
traverse, vast plains and NOUN
tains, pure aud exhilarating at
mosphere, seem to make them
physically and mentally a
more lively and merciful race
than the frontlersmen of form
er days. y mar who bestrides
a horse must be necessarily be
essentially be different from IL
man who covers in a canoe"
Though the old free life in
which these men participated
has passed away many of the
men themselves were alive
until recently, and a few of
them are living still. 1t is less
than twenty years ago since
Jim Rridger was a familiar
figure in ST. Louis. Kit Carson
] who died at d comparatively
early age for a plainsman who
had a natural death has been
gone less than a third of Il
century. \ shorter time than
has passed since the demise in
st. Louis of Father DeSnet,
the Jesuit. who among the In
dians Of the far Northwest. and
with the hcroisln which char
acterized his order, met hard
ships and perils as serious as
those which beset Brebouf.
Lalenlant. Jouges and the 9th, r
missionaries of hrs faith two
centuries earlier among t..
iiurons and the Iroqui, S.
There r persons still alive on
what was until recently, the
Western frontier who saw
Bent, Vasquez, st. Vrain, Sub
lettc and Jim Beckworth, while
Texas Jack, California Joe,
Wild Bill and scores of other
who were prominent in West
ern life in their day departed
at only Il comparatively accent
time. Persons are still living
in st. Louis who saw General
William Clark. she partner of
Lewis in the first expedition
of Anglo-Americans w!1i:h
crossed the continent to the
Pacific, and brother of George
Rogers Clark who won the
Northwest for the United
States in the revolution.
When, in 1891, the Chicago
and Rock Island line sent to
the Mississippi River the first
train of cars which ever reach
ed that stream, the forest life
of the older half of the country
closed for good. When. iii
1869, Pronontory Point i'll
the rails on the two ends
of the Pacific Railroads met
and the locomotive crossed the
continent, the beginning of the
beginning of the end came for
the plainsmen as a distinctive
element of the American popu-
Iation. This abolished the
coaches and the pony
express, and the old employ
nent of Ben Holiday, Russell,
& Waddell and their
confrerers. The Santa Fe trail
was still open, but when, a few
years later, the locomotive first
entered that, town the success
ors of theBabtiste Lalandes of
the Santa Fe caravans found
their occupations as irrevocab-
" gone as Mike Fink and the
rest of the fatboatman did
when Livingstone and Roos-
little tub the New Or
in 1911, steamed out Of
.ittsburg and drifted down the
Ohio and Mississippi. The At
Gibson railroad is a quicker and
safer mode of conveyance to
Santa Fe than the caravans
furnished but the FLAPS of Adj
venture and romance which it
mas displaced are gone forever
and not many of the Agamem-
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