What Was the Wild West [Paperback]

Saddle up and get ready for a ride back into the wild and wooly past of the American West.

The west was at its wildest from 1865 to 1895, when territories west of the Mississippi River remained untamed and lawless. Famous for cowboys, American Indians, lawmen, gunslingers, pioneers, and prospectors, this period in US history captures the imagination of all kids and now is brought vividly to life.Janet B. Pascal is the Executive Production Editor at Viking Children's Books and the author ofWho Was Dr. Seuss?, Who Was Maurice Sendak?, Who Was Abraham Lincoln?, What Is the Panama Canal?, andWhat Was the Hindenburg?What Was the Wild West?
 
 
In 1886, crowds gathered in New York’s Madison Square Garden to applaud one of the decade’s biggest traveling shows—“Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.” The cast included real cowboys and hundreds of Native Americans. Over the course of two thrilling hours, the audience saw the story of “how the West was won.” 
 
Indians on horseback hunted live buffalo. Bandits attacked an actual stagecoach. The famous sharpshooter Annie Oakley shot a cigar right out of her husband’s mouth. Cowboys rode bucking broncos and roped cattle. In the end, a band of Indian warriors attacked a pioneer settlement and were soundly defeated.
 
Buffalo Bill Cody, who ran the show, was a genuine Wild West hero. As a teenager, he rode a horse across the prairie for the Pony Express mail service. He scouted in the Indian Wars. He earned his nickname by killing 4,282 buffalo in eighteen months to feed workers who were building a railroad across the country. 
 
Buffalo Bill’s show was wildly popular. At the world’s fair in Chicago in 1893, millions of people came to see it. When it toured Europe, England’s Queen Victoria was a fan. The show was largely responsible for the popular legend of the Wild WestlÃ(