The railroad disrupts nature and bears down on the viewer, with the locomotive's light shining like a jewel. Wild deer scatter to the left, but the cleared field offers no refuge--the stumps, that catch the light of the west-setting sun, and the…
Redefined by territorial expansion in the mid-1800s, the boundary of the American West shifted from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, fueled largely by exploration and emigration along the Oregon Trail, among others.
Over the course of…