From borax mule trains to the canoe stop that was Chicago in the 1830s, this book vividly recreated the tale of the westward movement of pioneers into the heartland of North America. With nearly a century separating historian Richard Bartlett from the end of the movement, Bartlett's broad perspective stresses the continuity and inevitability of this greatest element of America's Golden Age. The book focuses on the settlement of the country, the racial and ethnic composition of the people, agriculture, transportation, developments of the land, the growth of towns and cities, and the nature of frontier society as it brilliantly brings to life the frontier experience as lived by millions of Americans. Bartlett concludes that the pioneer's freedom from restrictions in a new country resulted in the unprecedented burst of energy that settled America in some 114 years.