The Great American West (1995)

• 74%
• 1995
• Documentary
• History
• Reed Smoot
• Jason Robards
• Christopher Ivins
• Tyson Stephenson

THE GREAT AMERICAN WEST tells the story of the settlement of the United States' western frontier. Using the stories and words taken from diaries and letters of real people, this film not only showcases the astonishingly beautiful scenery of the American West, but also dramatizes the true and often heart-wrenching stories of those who risked everything to explore and settle it. This film chronicles the major events that contributed to the settlement of the western frontier, beginning in France as Napoleon Bonaparte grants President Thomas Jefferson that vast tract of wilderness beyond the Mississippi River known as the Louisiana Purchase, and ending in 1890 when the U.S. Census Bureau declared that there was no more frontier; it had been settled.