When in the early 1800s U.S. President Thomas Jefferson ordered a mission of exploration westward from St. Louis, Missouri, he inspired the emergence of a nation in a momentous century of migration and settlement. Thousands of explorers and hunters, settlers and opportunists, lawless and law-abiding eventually became millions joining the spread into the new territories of the American frontier.

They faced incredible hardships and had to overcome fearsome dangers from the elements, wild beasts, and hostile humans. They learned from their predecessors, the Native Americans, and brought with them their own skills for survival, the basic attributes that had always been essential through the whole history of human experience - endurance, strength, ingenuity, cooperation, and simple unwillingness to give up.

This fascinating volume, superbly illustrated with specially commissioned photographs of artifacts, artworks and contemporary images, is an examination of the trials and tribulations of those stalwart people who craved or were sometimes desperate for a new life in the West. It is a tribute to all those, regardless of race, color or creed, who did survive that epic century.