Issue 66 How the West Was Really Won

What a famous painting reveals about America’s move west.

A diversity of men and women brought the gospel to the Wild West at considerable personal sacrifice.

Though history has all but forgotten them, it was Christian preachers and teachers who really tamed the West.

Ethnic congregations were essential for building community in the nation’s most diverse region.

Few pioneers possessed strong enough resolve to keep the Sabbath on the Overland Trail.

Excerpts from a wagon train diary reveal that traveling overland was much more than a physical challenge.

Pioneer wives held their households together with a blend of grit and grace.

Traditional Christianity didn’t stand much of a chance in the California gold fields.

One bold Methodist preached outdoors in front of saloons and brothels.

Chronology of key events related to the Christian history of the American west.

The most controversial, and most effective, missionary to the West and Alaska, Sheldon Jackson was always pushing the boundaries.

The ordeals of a missionary.

Many non- and semi-Christian groups also laid claim to the West, but none more successfully than the Mormons.

Protestant missions to Native Americans had few shining moments.

The Whitman Massacre reveals much of what was noble and flawed regarding missions to Native Americans.

The wide-open West was served, state by state, by brave and sometimes beleaguered ministers and missionaries like these.

Why the twentieth-century West—urban and explosive—ain’t what it used to be.

Resources to learn more about Christianity in the American west.