"The more you know about the past,
the better prepared you are for the future.” -
from the movie “Night at the Museum”.
This site is for those that reminisce for the days when family driving vacations were the norm, when you stopped at highway diners instead of McDonald's or Burger King, when you looked for odd museums or experiences instead of a shopping mall, when getting somewhere was half the experience, when hard working people looked forward to fun and inexpensive destinations. Those experiences can still be had, even today... but you have to go looking for them. You have to tell people that your taking a vacation to North Dakota and Wyoming instead of Orlando, Los Angeles, Las Vegas or Europe. You need to leave your cell phone and laptop at home. Imagine yourself in the 1960's and 70's with a cooler of soda's and sandwiches and set out for parts of America that you may have forgotten about or maybe never really learned about. Some of the places are familiar:Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, The Black Hills. Most of the places aren't, but they can provide a lifetime of memories, whether you decide to record them on polaroids, slides, digital photos or your camcorder.
The Old West Trail Country promotion was created in the late 1960's to enhance tourism in the states of Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming and Montana as well as provide historical information for designated sites. It included a map with locations and events, roadsigns for the designated highways as well as magazine articles.
This website is intended to collect information,
photographs, personal recollections and data on the Old
West Trail Country for potential book publication and
overall public interest. Each page on the site is intended
to provide or review 3 things:
- What was the historical importance, significance or value of the location/event
- What was the context or experience like of the location/event in the late 60's or early 70's when the map was created.
- What has happened to the location/event or what is the experience of it in todays terms.
Contributions to this site is are welcomed. I would love to have any photos, images or information from the mid-1960s on any of the locations or events mentioned on this website. All copyrighted information must be identified with the copyright holder and the year of the copyright so that I may properly cite it here.
If you contribute a personal photo, I will ask that you provide me with permission (via email) to use the photo both on this website and on any publications. I will give proper credit to the individual or organization that provides the photo. Please provide as much information as possible about the photo, including people that might be in the photograph.
Advertising:
Many of the pages will have Google adSense boxes and Amazon Store links as well. My goal with allowing advertising is to offset some of the costs associated with my work on this site. Trust me when I say that I’m not giving up my day job (I am an IT Database Specialist). The Old West Trail Amazon Store has multiple books, DVD’s, etc that I have selected which will provide more information on the locations and events pertaining to this website. Some of books listed I have used as research and personally own, others are ones I wish I had the time to acquire and read.
Please have a look or click through if the advertising links are of interest to you as it does help and believe me when I tell you that I really do appreciate it.
Links:
www.milebymile.com
Site Coordinators Note: I am very sensitive to the word "Indian" being utilized on this website and in no way mean to be disrespectful or insensitive to Native Americans. Usage of the term "Indian" will only be used in the historical context of the documents, photo captions and maps which use the term, and any reference to current sites, documents or photos will use the proper terminology.
1. From the movie, "Night at the Museum"