Wagons, mules, and men
Subtitle: how the frontier moved west.
By: Text and pictures by Nick Eggenhofer.
Publisher: Hastings House
Published: 1961
Place of publication: New York
Language: eng
Number of pages: 184
Subjects: Transportation -- West (U.S.); Wagons
Description: Want to know just how a Conestoga wagon looked? This is your book. Wonder just how one was constructed? The details are given here, in words and in pictures. How did one of them differ from a "prairie schooner?" You'll find the answer here. This exciting, colorful account of the way in which America expanded from Atlantic to Pacific places its emphasis on the vehicles our pioneering forefathers used and on the animals that hauled the wagons and packed the loads. The text and the copious illustrations, both produced by a man who has spent half a lifetime gathering the facts of overland journeying in the era B.M.C. (Before Motor Cars), introduce the reader to such sturdy characters as the army mule, the prospector's burro, and the stagecoach horse; and to such vital equipment as jockey sticks, rough locks, saddle skirts, lazy boards, wagon reaches and doubletrees.^

You'll discover why the wagons that plied the Santa Fe Trail were so much larger than those that went over the Oregon Trail. The differences between a Mexican ox cart and a Red River cart are set forth; as are those between a Concord coach and a mud wagon. The comparative advantages of narrow and wide wagon tires are discussed. The giant borax wagons pulled by twenty-mule teams are described, as well as the even greater desert freighters hauled by even more animals. Six-mule escort wagons, army ambulances, mountain wagons, buckboards, Murphy wagons, surreys, hearses, and chaises are paraded for the reader's benefit and delight. Do the livestock interest you especially? The comparative trail of merits of horses, mules and oxen are gone into. You'll find out how a twenty-mule team negotiated one of those incredible hairpin curves.^

Besides dozens of other lively bits of information, it tells about the important role of the bell mare, mentions the unorthodox eating habits of army mules, gives the trail speed of ox teams (with wagons loaded or empty), describes leaders, wheelers and swing teams, and how they all were hitched. Turning to people, there are pages about mule-skinners, bullwhackers, stage drivers, cattle drovers, army packers, sheepherders and Indians. The stories of those who moved the frontier west by hoof and by wheel, from the day of the National Pike through the exploits of the Mormon Battalion and on to the heyday and the decline of stagecoaching, are related, not overlooking the special tools they used, from wagon jack to bullwhip -- Book jacket.
Notes: Bibliography: p. 180-181.