

PULLMAN TRAI n 



95e Rraine Jxbooner. 



* HE making of America began with the arrival of the first colonists on 

 JL the shores of Plymouth bay. And from that day down to the 

 present hour the colonist has been carrying the flag of civilization 

 into new countries and founding new institutions. When the Atlantic was 

 fringed with settlements the pioneer pushed across the Alleghanies, 

 conquered a new wilderness and carved more States from the forest and 

 prairie. The last great colonization epoch was the movement of a genera- 

 tion ago, when the dissolving armies of the Union peopled the Mississippi 

 valley and covered the country with new farms up to the point where the 

 rainfall vanishes and aridity confronts the settler with a new problem. It 

 is less than a generation since the days of the prairie schooner were at 

 their height. The life of the colonist may have lost something of its 

 picturesqueness, but it has gained much in comfort, and it is a very inter- 

 esting thing to compare the scenes of the recent past with what is going on 

 to-day in the making of new homes in new countries. 



THE GENERATION OF THE PRAIRIE SCHOONER. 



The prairie schooner was the emblem of the homestead era. The 

 pioneer made his covered wagon a house on wheels and gathered into it his 

 wife and children and all the household belongings necessary for the new 

 home. Whatever he. possessed in the way of surplus horses and cattle were 

 driven before him, and the indispensable dogs trotted contentedly behind. 

 So equipped, the pioneer and his family set out for the great, mysterious 

 West, where land was cheap and plenty and the rough life of the frontier 

 was sure to be liberally spiced with adventure. This was the common 

 method of making the journey, even after the transcontinental railroad 

 marked an iron pathway "over the prairie, for the larger portion of the 

 quarter sections must necessarily lie far away from the usual route of travel. 





