Out Where The West Begins

As the United States begins, so too begins the vision to head west. Thomas Jefferson, Chief Justice John Marshall and Abraham Lincoln can be credited for laying the foundational building blocks that would propel our expansion into the Western frontier.

Having a vision for the United States and the American West is one thing, but getting there, settling there and prospering there is another. Enter Samuel Morse, Theodore Judah, Fred Harvey and Andrew Carnegie -- innovators making the dream possible.

The move was on, but the journey and the expansion would be wrought with adversity. The West changed people. And people, like Charles Goodnight, Wild Bill Cody, Frederick Douglass and Jeanette Rankin, changed the West.

Factual and mythical stories of the West slowly merged to become the agreed upon "American West." And our storytellers, like Mark Twain, Thomas Moran, Carl Laemmle and even Teddy Roosevelt, inspired us -- one journey, one painting and one page at a time.