A certain twentieth century statesman having apparently a less distinct knowledge of the past than Benton and Greeley seemed to have of the future has recently said, "States made the railroads," and this allegation was assigned as the reason why state legislatures should regulate railroads without interference by the United States Government. In watching the magical development of the West, as I have carefully done, and observing that its evolution, sometimes on its fertile lands, at other times on arid deserts once regarded as hopeless, was always rapid along or near the new lines of transportation and scanty, if at all, elsewhere, one is tempted to invert the statesman's assertion that "States made railroads" and declare with greater justice that "Railroads have made states," and while like men they should be subject to regulation, they also deserve that reasonable protection to which a prime factor in modern civilization is entitled. Nearly half a century has passed since there began this sudden and wonderful awakening of the Western Wilderness, the processes leading up to which are described in these pages as they were unfolded to one who had observed them from the first quickening of Western emigration. The Wild West as still caricatured in the arena by dashing, reckless circus cowboys and swift-footed Texas steers is no more. The limitless ranges of semi-arid lands over which those riders coursed their hardy mustangs are now partitioned by wire fences within which steady herdsmen watch their blooded stock. The old Oregon and Santa Fe trails stretching half way across the continent over wide wastes unpeopled except by savage tribes, once the scene of innumerable thrilling adventures and desperate encounters, are now quite forgotten except as they are held in vivid remembrance by the few still living who have traced their dusty courses across the plains and deserts or their sinuous pathways through the mountain canyons. Steel railways now parallel those trails along which trains of prairie schooners slowly crept, and thousands of miles of steel branches radiate from them across vast areas hardly visited fifty years ago even by the explorer. The warrior tribes are subdued and driven to reservations; the buffalo is seen no more on those broad vistas; a dozen great and populous commonwealths have arisen in those territories and have been added to the galaxy of American States, and thriving cities and towns, thoroughly abreast with advanced civilization, are now scattered over the expanse defined on the old maps as the Great American Desert. * * * * * Transcriber's Notes: Hyphenation, punctuation, and spelling standardized when a predominant preference was found in this book; otherwise unchanged. Simple typographical errors remedied; most retained. Chapter XXVI sub-heading changed to mixed-case small-caps for consistency with all the other Chapter sub-headings.