In 1803, France sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in what was called the “Louisiana Purchase.” The president, Thomas Jefferson, sent an expedition led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore this new territory and beyond into the West. Their mission was to find a way across the continent to the Pacific Ocean, record the animals and plants they saw, and meet with American Indian tribes to make or keep peace. They set off in 1804 from St. Louis, Missouri, and returned in 1806, after 27 months of exploration. They were helped along the way by a woman from the Shoshone nation, Sacagawea. One of the members of the expedition was an enslaved African American man named York. This exploration sparked an interest in the American West and inspired the pioneers to make the dangerous journey across America in the coming years.

The arrival of Europeans in North America and their expansion into the West impacted and devastated the American Indian tribes and nations. American Indians were pushed westward to make way for the white settlers. In 1830, under President Andrew Jackson, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which tore the Cherokee people’s land away from them and forced them to resettle in Oklahoma. Their march from Georgia to Oklahoma is known as the “Trail of Tears.” Many people suffered and died along the way. Though the name “Trail of Tears” refers to the Cherokee experience, other nations, including the Seminoles, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, were also forced from their tribal lands.

President James Polk said that it was America’s "Manifest Destiny" to settle North America all the way to the Pacific Ocean. In 1841 the first group of 69 pioneers left Missouri and headed west, bound for Oregon. Each spring, pioneers gathered to begin a 2,000-mile trek west. The journey from Missouri to Oregon was a difficult, dangerous ordeal that could take 5 to 8 months. Starvation, disease, accidents, hostile Native American tribes, and outlaws were among the dangers. Why would pioneers risk their own lives and the lives of their families to make this migration? For many families it was the promise of land to own, money to be made, and the chance of a better life. From 1841 to 1869, when the transcontinental railroad was completed, more than 350,000 people traveled by foot and wagon to reach Oregon and California.

Some people chose to migrate to the West for the same reason that many people came to America two centuries before: religious freedom. In their original homes, Mormons, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were threatened, attacked, and had their homes and crops destroyed because of their religious beliefs. Mormons decided to leave for the West and the promise of religious freedom. The Mormon pioneers left Illinois in 1846 and risked cold, hunger, bandits, and disease to settle in the Salt Lake valley of Utah. Many would follow in their path.

Before the Civil War, settlers who had already reached California found themselves cut off from the rest of the world with no way to quickly contact friends, family, or business partners. The Butterfield Express was a stagecoach mail route, but it took twenty-three days, almost a whole month, for delivery! The Pony Express, started on April 3, 1860, promised the fastest communication ever from the Missouri River to California. Young men rode horses, galloping as fast as they could to deliver important messages. This service lasted until 1861 when telegrams, messages sent through wires, finally connected New York and San Francisco. With telegrams sending messages in seconds and a new railroad being built from coast to coast, there was no more need for the adventurous riders in the Pony Express.

In 1862, Congress passed the Pacific Railway Act to build railroads across western lands. On May 10, 1869, the eastern and western sections of track were connected. With this new railroad, people, goods, crops, and even ideas, could move across the country faster than ever before. The building of the railroad also made it clear to everyone that America had a strong, central government that had the right to take and use land as it saw fit. Many American Indian tribes and nations had land stolen from them so that states could host the railroad, which brought business and money. The transcontinental railroad has a complicated past.It linked the East and West and changed our nation forever, but often at the expense of the native peoples.