Domesticating a Wilderness | America Series

Duration: 2000

Year Published: 1972

Complete Record: In the last half of the 19th century the virtually un-populated territories of the west were first settled, then developed. The Mormons, who had reached Utah in the 1840's, had shown what hard toil could do against apparently overwhelming odds. Travel was aided by the completion of rail links across the continent and the invention of the wind-pump, the steel-faced plow (plough) and barbed wire made farming easier. The Indians were confined in reservations and the central flat lands became one of the great wheat-growing areas of the whole. These developments were fatal not only to the Indian, but to the free-ranging cowboy. With the growth of towns and respectable citizenry the era of the Ẁild West' was over. Begins with Salt Lake City and history of Mormonism; Mormon Tabernacle Choir; rural country scenes; b/w historical photograph montage covering the making of the railroad; mixture of contemporary footage and historical photographs and paintings of “cowboys & Indians, ” wild-west saloons, homesteaders and prairie- life. Concludes with coverage of Buffalo Bill, the Battle of Little Big Horn, Sitting Bull, General Custer, Battle of Wounded Knee, Pine Ridge reservation.