Goin' West.....by Way of the River On the Shore  Some of the pictures are large and will take awhile to download if you are using a dial-up modem.

Main Street, Vermillion, Dakota Territory.  Between April and October, 1865, thirty-seven steamboats full of migrants (and hundreds more who came overland) traveled up the Missouri River and settled on the great central plains.

Winter was a dull time for the trappers, traders and cowboys, who had to devise ways, such as the never-ending card game, to pass the time.

Sitting Bull's camp, Missouri River can be seen in background.

A freight wagon ready to leave Fort Benton in the 1870's.

Hotel wagon waits for guests outside of a hotel in Bismarck, Dakota Territory.

Crews surveying the Missouri, aboard their living quarters (which aren't exactly 'on the shore,' but close enough! :-)

Bellevue, a compound of traders' cabins and shorehouses near present-day Council Bluff, Iowa; painting by Karl Bodmer, 1810.

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