Talk:Timeline of the American Old West

Major Reconstruction Ongoing
Amalgamated all information from the year stubs into this page, which was originally just a list of years connecting to the short articles.

Will be reformatting over the next couple of days, adding references, and hopefully filling out some of the ample blank spaces.

Feel free to add either info or references, but please remember to leave a note here what you have added! That way I can confirm that I have amalgamated your new info into the reformatted existing info. Failing to do so may result in your edits disappearing. Thanks for your patience. --Haruth (talk) 14:52, 2 May 2010 (UTC)
 * AWOL for a few days. Dive in! Best wishes --Haruth (talk) 00:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Change title
Wiki just changed the title of "American Old West" to "American Frontier" and so this associated article should also be renamed to Timeline of the American Frontier. Rjensen (talk) 23:39, 28 May 2012 (UTC)

Tom Horn
Tom should be included on this list.

-oo0(GoldTrader)0oo- (talk) 23:14, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

Suggested direction for this timeline
It seems the scope of this timeline could be more appropriately focused by eliminating the births and deaths, or at least most of them. So many of them are outlaws, gunfighters, or lawmen. Aren't they already listed in the List of American Old West outlaws and List of Old West lawmen? If not they should be? They are more easily found in an alphabetical list anyway. Also, the birth of a particular gunfighter is really not that notable; it's what that person did later that is potentially notable and may be worthy to be listed here. But even then, I don't think we want to list every single gunfight in the West. There should be some notability standard developed here as well. But I think a great first step is to eliminate the births and deaths and focus on historical events of substantial notability. Any thoughts out there?--KingJeff1970 (talk) 19:44, 25 February 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅. Would certainly tidy things up a bit. You could always go bold, KingJeff1970, just watch out for images that may be loaded near a birth / death losing context by the removal of the event... and, of course, I'd leave the deaths of the ones who are only really famous for that... ;-) Best wishes --Haruth (talk) 21:45, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

I agree as well. The births don't really add much of anything except a date that few will remember after reading, and the deaths are only relevant if their circumstances constitute a major reason for the individual's notability (i.e. people who were murdered or whose deaths had an otherwise significant impact on subsequent events involving their town/region/organization). I think the article is better without all the needless clutter. Thanks for starting the discussion! This article deserves it.

Setting notability standards for births and deaths also begs discussion of more problematic issues with the scope of this timeline. I have often had trouble specifying the temporal and geographical criteria for inclusion of items on this list. It appears there is some uncertainty, at least within Wikipedia, with regards to the approximate boundaries and time interval meant by the term "Old West" (indeed, both Old West and Wild West redirect to the American frontier article). Yet it is clear, I think, that the American frontier and the Old West are not one and the same: the frontier article includes the early history of much of the land east of the Mississippi River to the original colonies, which at one time was also considered the frontier, and I think such information would be out of place in this timeline as it is separate from my personal conception of what constitutes the "Old West". In my edit of the introductory paragraph, I sort of arbitrarily designated the "Old West" as everything that happened west of the Mississippi between the years 1781 and 1912, mostly because that time and place seemed to capture almost all of the items already listed in the timeline, but this is nothing more than my own subjective and ambiguous attempt at providing this timeline with inclusion criteria. Perhaps the best clues to identifying a more precise definition come from Templates and Categories such as Template:American frontier, which are similar in scope to this timeline and almost exclusively list events from the 19th and early 20th centuries that occurred west of the Mississippi River. There is also a WikiProject American Old West that has rules for its own page, but they strictly exclude any event after the year 1900, which I feel would make this timeline a bit narrow if used. But again, these are just my own ideas; which definition is the most precise or useful way to organize this timeline is open to interpretation.

Other unresolved issues:
 * With a strict definition of "American Old West", one could argue that only events which happened on what is now American soil should be listed here, but I think that would exclude a lot of interesting stuff that happened in what is now Mexico and Canada, especially in the borderlands, that is relevant to American history (William Walker and much of the Apache Wars, for example).
 * How far back in time do we go? The Palace of the Governors in Santa Fe, which remains standing today, was built by Spanish imperialists in 1610 and is indisputably an important piece of history of the Western United States; yet its construction and similar early landmark events, like Juan Cabrillo's landing in California, remain sporadic and singular events in the many centuries of exploration/colonization before the beginning of our current timeline. Their inclusion would likely leave huge gaps in the timeline that would never be filled. Already the first several decades (1800-1830) have been grouped together because of a dearth of information, and there are no entries at all before 1800, though the tentative start date of the timeline is 1781.
 * What about people born in the West during the span of the timeline, but whose notability mostly stems from their participation in events in the East or elsewhere? The fact that Herbert Hoover was the first U.S. President born west of the Mississippi might be seen as notable and relevant to Western history, even though his presidential actions took place almost entirely on the East Coast. This brings up the births/deaths issue again, but obviously would only be important to consider for super-famous people like presidents.
 * A related consideration is the inclusion of people/events that lived/occurred largely or exclusively in the East, but which nevertheless had important consequences for the history of the Old West. For example, the introduction of barbed wire in Illinois; the exile of Eastern Indian tribes to the West; the inaugurations and significant actions of U.S. politicians such as Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln who indirectly affected Western history. If nothing else, these entries may serve as useful context by which to relate events in the West with what was going on in other parts of the country.
 * Actors/authors/journalists/folk icons who played a significant role in generating the romantic image or identity of the Old West. Do their notable actions belong in the timeline? John Wayne, Will Rogers, Zane Grey, Horace Greeley, Ned Buntline, and others all fit this description, though much of their notability came from their actions outside either the geographic boundaries or time period specified by this timeline.
 * The inclusion of people or events that lack either their own articles or specific times and places. People like John Barry (1871 Jan 1 in the timeline) and John Alexander (1874 May 25), despite including precise dates and good citations in their listings, are apparently not notable enough to have their own Wikipedia articles. Additionally, there are a few instances of very general statements about political, social, or economic conditions spanning a wide range of locations (often the entire West) being attached to seemingly arbitrary dates; for example, the item about the reduction of the buffalo population, listed in 1870. While no doubt a significant event in Western history, it's hard to say where to put such an item in the timeline, as most estimates of actual buffalo numbers from that time are incomplete and controversial. Who's to say the most dramatic population decline began in 1870 rather than 1871? These items either need more specific information or references, need to be moved to a general summary of widespread events/conditions beneath the decade headings (as with the "Early exploration and development" heading), or need to be omitted entirely. Most of these people and events do add something significant to the timeline, but perhaps they are better suited for the standard article format.

Needless to say, this article will have to be examined with quite a bit of discretion if precise inclusion criteria or notability standards are to be applied; there are simply too many items that only very loosely fit specific definitions, primarily because the idea of the American Old West itself is so vaguely defined and variable from one person to another. But ultimately my vision for this timeline is as follows: a list, in chronological order, of brief summaries/descriptions of specific and notable events in the histories of individuals as well as organizations/governments which, to a notable degree, influenced the subsequent political/economic/cultural/historical character of the North American continent between the Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, and between the Canadian border and the Mexican border, with a reasonable degree of temporal and geographic leniency. The entries should be complete sentences, detailed yet stylishly written, that include links to other articles on the people and places involved and, as far as is possible, a precise date or range of dates (in adhering to this format I am heavily influenced by the excellent Timeline of events preceding World War II). In general I think the types of entries that most closely correspond with this vision include:
 * Explorations, expeditions, and discoveries.
 * Foundations/constructions of important institutions/settlements/cities.
 * Territorial acquisitions and changes of ownership.
 * Technological, economic, and political landmarks that can be narrowed down to a single proximate cause or trigger, even if the actual change they effected took years to implement or began outside the West. The first connection of the telegraph to Marshall, Texas and the effect of the winter of 1886 on the cattle drives are good examples.
 * Major battles/massacres (especially turning points of wars) fought in that region, even if they were technically outside the present-day boundaries of the United States. Not every battle from a given war should be listed, either; just the deadliest or the most strategic ones. I find that the very first and/or the very last conflicts of a war are often sufficient; any other important facts about the war, even other battles, are usually better summarized within a single entry on the timeline.
 * No more than five significant entries from the lives of any one individual whose notability comes primarily from their time spent in the West. I don't think there should be day-to-day chronicles of every single movement/activity in the life of any one person; that's what their individual articles are for. People who could easily fall victim to this are "Wild Bill" Hickok, Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, and Billy the Kid. Also, five entries need not be the absolute cut-off; the inclusion of anything beyond that should be considered with discretion.
 * Gunfights, feuds, and robberies that are the primary reasons for the notability of their participants, and/or especially deadly or memorable for other reasons (for example, a feud that triggered a larger conflict). Many of these will overlap with events from the lives of lawmen and outlaws.
 * Other interesting, memorable, or one-of-a-kind events/stories from the Old West that can be concisely summed up with a specific time and place attached. Notable first and last events (for example, the Jarbidge Stage Robbery in 1916) are usually good additions, even if they're only notable for being the first or last of their kind.

I am neutral towards the inclusion of events related to actors/authors/journalists as described previously. I don't think the timeline would be made significantly more or less cohesive if they were permitted their own entries.

All of this, of course, is just my perspective on how this timeline could be efficiently constructed. However it turns out, the only thing that is truly paramount for making this article complete and effective is that exceptions be made and that active contribution always be rewarded. Hopefully my lengthy exposition does not stifle further contribution to this discussion - let's keep it going! What does everyone think? --PJsg1011 (talk) 10:08, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
 * These are terrific ideas.  I agree that the gunfighters are a waste of space and belong on their own separate list. But other biographies can be included and I think the location solution is not when they're born or died, but when they flourished. Rjensen (talk) 22:24, 14 March 2015 (UTC)

Practical suggestion for future editing
In an effort to make collaboration easier I'd like to suggest we limit our future edits to perhaps changes in just one decade, or as I will attempt to do, just a single entry at a time. When changes are made across multiple entries in multiple decades of the list for a single edit it becomes very difficult to follow-up and check the changes. I have probably been guilty of this myself so I'm going to try to practice what I preach here from now on. Does this sound agreeable?--KingJeff1970 (talk) 16:18, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Lead Revision
I'd like to attempt a rewrite of the lead to make it fit the entries that we currently have and that we want for the future development of this timeline. Right now it is reflecting what I think was a past direction going toward a "Timeline of the American Frontier" as opposed to the Old West, or the region west of the Mississippi prior to say, 1912. I think a timeline based on American settlement across the continent might be a good and workable project, but it doesn’t appear to fit the entries currently on this timeline. As far as I can tell all of these entries cover events west of the Mississippi. Therefore the lead should be revised to more clearly match this. I also think it would be good for the lead to state, as clearly as possible, the scope of the entries we want for this timeline. This may be done with a statement at the end of the lead. The idea here is to give us a statement that guides future work and limits what entries are acceptable. Of course, everything I do will be up for revision and tweaking, and please feel free to join in. I just wanted to explain my motivation for the revision. Any issues let's discuss here.--KingJeff1970 (talk) 18:09, 23 October 2015 (UTC)

Removal of Cody and Earp death events
Just as some preliminary info is included by ways of an introduction into the era, some info at the curtain call needs to remain. As icons of the era, I think that the death dates of Buffalo Bill Cody and Wyatt Earp are important and should remain, as final punctuation of the era being explored in the article. GenQuest "Talk to Me" 01:21, 26 October 2015 (UTC)
 * The focus of this timeline is the American Old West and we need to try really hard to limit entries to events within the natural timeframe chosen, which is 1803-1912. On top of that, Buffalo Bill is not known for his death, but mostly for his mythologizing and salesmanship of the idea of the Old West. We have only one entry on his beginnings in the "business" in 1872; we need at least one more for when he was at his peak, not when he passed away.--KingJeff1970 (talk) 06:39, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Scope of entries
I thought I'd bring some of PJsg1011's relevant recent comments from my talk page here to allow for more discussion--KingJeff1970 (talk) 19:12, 2 November 2015 (UTC)


 * As for the intention of some of my recent edits, specifically the ones that have altered or removed information from your edits, I hope you understand that I'm not trying to bowdlerize your input! Rather I am simply trying to keep most of the entries free of needless verbosity. I think timelines are easier to read and more manageable when the entries are minimally worded (though not minimally detailed!) - they're simply there to make readers aware of the chronology and the general context of the described events, nothing more. If a reader wants to learn more about a particular entry, they need only click on the contained links.


 * Take, for example, your entry on Mission San Diego de Alcalá. The last sentence describing the effects of the Franciscan missions on indigenous peoples is good stuff - it's important info and reliably sourced - but I initially saw it as an example of verbosity for three reasons: 1) it's nearly as long as the first two sentences combined, 2) the nature of the 'serious decline' of the indigenous population is vague, and 3) the information it aims to share - that the indigenous population was affected by Spanish colonization - should be obvious to most readers from the earlier sentences, and indeed to anyone remotely conscious of any part of New World history. The sentence describes something that could be arbitrarily placed in numerous spots on this timeline; why should this particular entry be that spot? It isn't consistent with the rest of the timeline because it presents the effects of European colonization as if they are exclusively or especially relevant to the history of the indigenous peoples that lived near the mission, when that's clearly not the case. My opinion is that the majority of the specifically meaningful information in this particular entry is all contained within those first two sentences.


 * Hopefully that makes sense, but that's just the way I see it. I'm a verbose entry-writer myself (just look at my recent entry on the Johnson County War), so much of my editing simply attempts to rectify my own inadequacies in making information succinct and unambiguous to the average reader. I'm constantly revising my own entries to make them more concise, and I'm certain there's still a great many things to improve in most of them. Again, it's all an effort to make the timeline more like a series of finely detailed bullet points than a series of thesis-heavy paragraphs. That's just how I imagine things look and read best. Though I suppose a standard level of detail to be included in an entry is a fine line to draw, a vaguely bounded distinction between too little and too much, not to mention entirely subjective. I also believe in a great deal of leeway in adhering to standards, and keeping one sentence that does not fit my personal criteria for concision is not going to make or break the timeline, nor is it really for me to choose. I simply wanted to explicate to you some of my editing methods and why I make the edits that I do.PJsg1011 (talk) 23:09, 1 November 2015 (UTC)


 * I do understand your interest in finding the right balance between the length of an entry (and its wordiness) and the proper level of detail. It is a fine line indeed. I think your Johnson County War entry was superb, with just the right amount of detail. I'll hold it up as a model entry for the future of this timeline. In the California mission entry you mentioned, I struggled with whether or not to include the extra line about the decline of native populations. I agree the wording leaves the impression of a vague causality, so maybe that can be reworded better than it is. I still thought its inclusion was necessary because I feel achieving some balance between the Spanish and native sides of the story is so important. I was willing to increase the length of the entry to strive for better balance in presenting the story. To your comments, I believe in the necessity for placing the statement concerning the impacts of European colonization (which is clearly represented in Nugent's source) in this entry, as opposed to somewhere else, because of the substantial tie between mission life and the decline of the indigenous population due to disease and poor treatment. A specific citation of a dramatic decline in population should show up somewhere in this first introductory section of the timeline, don't you think? It's likely to show up again as when American colonization picks up after the CA Gold Rush and native groups face almost total extinction in that state. It's a huge story and difficult to find events to tie it to, but I think we need to try.--KingJeff1970 (talk) 19:39, 2 November 2015 (UTC)

Is the broad stroke too broad?
Thanks KingJeff1970 for restarting the discussion.

I agree that we need to try. You're absolutely right: the fate of New World civilization upon contact with Old World civilization is a big story, perhaps the biggest story, in the history of the American West, and probably in all of human history. And in a way, that's what makes it so challenging to adequately discuss in a timeline like this - it's simply too big. As such I think its discussion within individual entries presents a unique obstacle to this timeline's efficiency and readability.

Yet, it's clear that the story needs to be told, and from both sides of the conflict as much as is possible. Sadly the preponderance of the entries in this timeline will inevitably lean towards the European perspective, if only because Europeans kept better written records of their versions of events. I also agree that readers would be better served if, when specific mentions are made in specific entries, those entries are nearer to the beginning of the timeline - this is for apparently obvious reasons, but it may also be true that most readers who use this timeline do not read it top to bottom in its entirety, or in chronological order. In that case, it would be best to have entries mentioning the causes and effects of contact spread evenly throughout the timeline. But my opinion is that this often generates clutter, awkward phrasing, and worst of all, vague and misleading generalizations about broad social trends and circumstances ostensibly extant during specific events. Unfortunately I really don't have many solutions to this problem. It's important to present the "big picture", but mentioning that in a timeline format inside discrete, specific entries comes at the risk of having entries that are overly long and possibly redundant.

One solution is to simply not attempt to connect with or discuss "big picture" phenomena in the timeline. Commentary on large-scale trends and quantitative estimates of demographics and social conditions are perhaps more meaningful in the traditional encyclopedia format. Indeed, the American frontier article goes into causes and effects of contact already.

Another idea is to add a paragraph or two to the beginning of each section of the timeline describing "big picture" stuff in the more traditional article format - to continue in the vein of "Early exploration and development". I think this is the best place to mention grandiose social trends that might be too broad to discuss within individual entries. Here it is safe to write about these issues without fear of compromising the context of the entries, and we can use as many reliable sources as we want. It would enable editors (and readers) to adequately summarize the major social changes of the decade and would sort of "prime" the reader with overarching themes and concepts relevant to the entries. I could take a crack at writing one if you want, but I think it would ultimately look very much like the one already present in "Early exploration and development".

I don't know, what do you think? Mentioning "big picture" stuff inside specific entries wouldn't be that terrible, I guess. We already do it a considerable amount and the timeline "flows" pretty smoothly. If we end up leaving this information to individual entries, I think the last sentence of the Mission San Diego de Alcalá entry could definitely benefit from rewording.

Other thoughts and ideas:
 * I think John Kessell's Kiva, Cross & Crown: The Pecos Indians and New Mexico, 1540-1840, a reference from the Pueblo Revolt article, proves a reliable source for a specific date to be attached to the Diego de Vargas entry - September 14, 1692. The entirety of the text is available on Google Books and seems to support that a formal ceremony marking the successful reconquest of Santa Fe occurred on this day. But it's totally cool if you think the entry is better without a specific date - the "pueblos at Santa Fe" are not the same as the "pueblos in all of northern New Mexico", and the reconquest of the latter certainly did not happen all in one day.
 * The very next entry in the timeline, concerning the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar, has a date of May 1, 1718, but according to sources from their respective wp articles, the Misión de San Antonio de Valero was founded on May 1 and the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar four days later, on May 5, which is why I originally modified the link to indicate the Alamo. But this choice is arbitrary. I simply picked the Alamo for the entry because its date is (slightly) earlier and the mission is mentioned later during the Texas Revolution entries. I'm not partial to one or the other mission being mentioned, or even both; being a non-San Antonian myself, I can hardly discriminate as to which one marks the "true" founding of the city of San Antonio (though it's notable that the infobox template on San Antonio's page lists its founding as May 1). Whatever mission is used, the corresponding date should be correct.
 * It could be useful to have standard criteria for adding or deleting images from the right-side ribbon. All the ones already included are fine, but I feel that pictures of people should comprise the lion's share and, when relevant, not include any military ranks or other designations in the caption: just the person's full name. Also, captions should never be more than one sentence. Suggestions for these criteria?
 * Thanks for the compliment on my Johnson County War entry. But I think I want to try to narrow it down a bit... my first tries rarely fit my personal standard for concision, so I'm going to trim it so that it fills only three lines rather than five. I'd like your feedback though - if you don't like the new edit, feel free to change it.

Again, all of this is open to discussion and revision. Most of my formatting criteria are modeled after the standards already present in this article when I first began editing it, but the timeline has changed considerably since then, and they may no longer be the best ways to present the information contained here. I simply hope they will serve as a starting point for bigger and better things. -- PJsg1011 (talk) 07:21, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

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Wrong photo of Doc Holliday
The photo of Doc Holliday is actually of the frenchman John Escapule (Escobel) of Tombstone. Photo by C.S. Fly Tombstone. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.211.92.219 (talk) 17:59, 23 October 2016 (UTC)

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