From the River to the Sea: The Railroad War of the 1870s that Made the West

Published: May 4, 2021, 6:15 a.m.

It is remarkable now to imagine, but during the 1870s, the American West, for all its cloud-topped peaks and endless coastline, might have been barren tundra as far as most Americans knew. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad had made history...