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ROADS TO EMPIRE by Harry Sinclair Drago

ROADS TO EMPIRE

By

Pub Date: Aug. 12th, 1968
Publisher: Dodd, Mead

Mr. Drago, whose Great American Cattle Trails (1965) followed the Chisholm, now traces wagon wheels westward on the four great trails that opened the West to commerce and civilization. They are; the Santa Fe Trail to New Mexico, with which the names of Pike, Becknell, Cooper and Kearny fire associated; the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest forged by William Drummond Steward and the stalwart Whitmans; the Mormon Road to Great Salt Lake, which the Mormons under the aegis of Brigham Young travelled with hand carts and later by church trains; the Overland Trail to California, glamorized by Sutter, the Pony Express, the Vigilantes, Ben Holladay, and others. The author's aim is ""that there might be gathered into one volume of average length the various threads of America's westward migration."" He accomplishes this with a minimum of fuss in a book of somewhat wider interest than Cattle Trails.