The desire to settle the United States from coast to coast was more than just an American dream. Beginning with the administration of President James K. Polk (1845–1849), it became a national policy known as Manifest Destiny. Americans felt it was the nation’s right to expand westward and settle the North American continent as they saw fit.
But traveling across the frontier was a perilous journey. The route through the wild west was not for the faint-hearted. Trouble of any kind—a broken wagon
