RTT Quarterly July-September 2026 The Old West

Books for this quarter can be written (published) in the 19th century or about the 19th century—the theme is the OLD WEST. Bascially, stories and/or events that take place west of the Mississippi. (usually 1865-1900)



Timeline of the “Old West” North America 1865ish to 1900ish
1846-1847 Donner Party
1848-1855 Gold found in Sutters Mill, begins California Gold Rush
1859-Comstock Lode Discovered-America’s richest silver mine
1860’s Pullman revives the “sleeping car”
1862-The Homestead Act-provided 160 acres of free federal land to citizens who agreed to settle, build, and farm it for five years
1862-1864 the US Congress passes the Pacific Railway Act which will connect Omaha to Sacramento. Construction is held up by the Civil War.
1865 The Sultana steamboat disaster
1865-1869 Central Pacific begins construction of Transcontinental Railroad (TCRR) from Sacramento moving east. They employed mainly Chinese laborers.
1865-1869 Union Pacific begins construction of the TCCR from Omaha moving west. They employ Civil War vets, Irish, and German immigrants.
1869-TCCR completed at Promontory Point, Utah, where a symbolic golden spike was driven.
1869-Westinghouse invents the air brake
1870 Bret Harte's The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches, a collection of stories based on his years as a San Francisco journalist, is published
1870’s With the growing railroad industry and cattle boom, buffalo hunters begin moving onto the Great Plains. In less than ten years, the buffalo population is dramatically reduced, and the animal remains an endangered species (bison)
1870-Jesse James robs a bank in Iowa
1870’s John Deere invents the iron plow, 1870’s James Oliver invents improved chilled iron plow that works better on prairie sod
1870s-William F. "Buffalo Bill" Cody, a scout for the U.S. 5th Cavalry Regiment, is awarded the Medal of Honor. Later in the year he will retire and organize his “Wild West” show.
1871-The Great Chicago Fire
1871-The Peshtigo Fire
1872-Yellowstone is designated the first National Park in the U.S. by President U.S. Grant
1872-Mark Twain publishes Roughing It about his travels in the west
1872-The Winchester Colt is manufactured and becomes known as “the gun that won the west.”
1872-The James Younger gang commits the first train robbery in the history of the U.S.
1872-The poem “My Western Home” is set to music and becomes the western classic “Home on the Range”
1872-Joseph Glidden patents barbed wire, the beginning of western range wars
1872-Sioux leaders Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse refuse to leave the Black Hills. The US Calvary dispatches George Custer, et al.
1873 Levi jeans sold & patented
1876-The Battle of Little Bighorn-Custer & his men all killed by Lakota Sioux
1887-A severe winter storm known as the Schoolhouse Blizzard kills more than 235 people across a vast area of the Great Plains including the Dakota Territory, Nebraska, and Kansas.
1889-A fire destroys the entire central business district in Seattle, Washington Territory, eventually burning 25 city blocks and costing the city nearly $20 million.
1890-More than 200 men, women, and children of the Lakota Sioux are killed in Wounded Knee, South Dakota when the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment attempts to confiscate their weapons. They were performing a religious ritual at the time of the killings.
1892-John Muir founds Sierra Club
1896-1899 Klondike Gold Rush

Possibilities and past reads of LTers:
Any book by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Black Elk’s Vision: A Lakota Story (by S. D. Nelson)
Bugles in the afternoon – Ernest Haycox –
The Color of Lightning - Paulette Jiles -
The Compact History of the Indian Wars
The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn (by Nathaniel Philbrick; narrated by George Guidall) -
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurtry
News of the World (by Paulette Jiles; narrated by Grover Gardner) -
The Ox-Bow Incident - Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Simon the Fiddler (by Paulett Giles
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
True Grit by Charles Portis
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday, and the Vendetta Ride from Hell by Tom Clavin
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: An Indian History of the American West by Dee Brown
The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral--And How It Changed The American West by Jeff Guinn
These is my Words by Nancy E. Turner
Where the Lost Wander by Amy Harmon
Rider of Lost Creek - Louis L'Amour
The Luck of the Roaring Camp by Brett Hart



Suggestions? What will you be reading?

I can recommend Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History.

I will probably be reading a Laura Ingalls Wilder book as I'm re-reading the entire series this summer.

Already read one this month, if it counts early...

Dragon Teeth - I gave it 4 stars.
Relatively short and entertaining. This was an early work published posthumously, so it lacks a certain polish. Not the usual sci fi thriller by Crichton, this is a straight historical fiction adventure tale set in the wild west. Cope and Marsh, and their famous rivalry was real. We also get a taste of Custer and the Indian wars, Wyatt Earp, the Black Hills Gold Rush, and the early days of Deadwood. Good fun if you don't take it too critically.

I hope to read My Ántonia by Willa Cather (a reread) and either Westering Women by Sandra Dallas or Where The Lost Wander by Amy Harmon.

I will be reading Lonesome Dove, although I won't be starting until August. If I have time I may pick up something else. I would like to finally read Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, but I may not be able to fit that in this year.