[Illustration: THE NORTH PLATTE, KNOWN TO CIVILIZATION SINCE THE EXPEDITION OF JOHN JACOB ASTOR IN 1812]
“Pioneers camped here June 3, ’47, making fifteen miles a day. All well.
After Sidney, a rich farming town of two thousand people, and in 1868 a military post of importance, the Overland Limited stops at Cheyenne. Shortly before reaching Cheyenne, Long’s Peak, with snow-clad summit appears above the horizon.
[Illustration: WYOMING COWBOYS DELIGHT TO MATCH THEIR SKILL]
Five hundred and sixteen miles west and a mile higher than Omaha on the last and highest of the tablelands that fringe the plains is Cheyenne, capital of Wyoming and a growing, lively city of fifteen thousand people. Above it loom the massive Rockies; around it are great plains, partly irrigated from the great five hundred million-gallon reservoir. Here each summer is held one of the most picturesque and representative gatherings in the country—the Frontier Day celebration, when the mountains and the most distant plains yield up their cattlemen and cowboys, their hunters, trappers, Indians, and outpost men generally to contest for honors in riding, tieing steers, horse breaking, shooting and other frontier sports. No gayer or more picturesque crowd ever assembled than this.
[Illustration: THE WYOMING COWPUNCHER IS STILL IN EVIDENCE AS A PICTURESQUE AND USEFUL FACTOR OF THE PLAINS LIFE]
Cheyenne is a great livestock center, has railway shops, is the junction for the Denver and Kansas City branch of the Union Pacific, and is making progress as a mercantile and manufacturing place. With its beautiful Carnegie library and half million dollar Federal building and other excellent buildings, there is little to recall the town of the early sixties, when its reputation was extended as a shipping center for the long trails of cattle, and noted as a famous place for carved saddles. Among its first pioneers was James B. Hickok (Wild Bill), a brave gentleman, a great scout and guide, and noted throughout the West as a superb horseman, and one of the most wonderful marksmen with a six-shooter that ever lived. He was chief of scouts under Custer in the Indian campaigns of 1868-69 and the latter paid him high tribute in his book, “My Life on the Plains.”