He walked out anyway.

The Road That Would Not Be Built

The Bozeman Trail was not simply a road.

It was a statement about whose land the Powder River Country was.

American roads of this era were markers of sovereignty and development as much as practical transportation.

Building a road through a territory was an act of incorporation — a physical declaration that this land was available for American use and development, subject to American authority.

The roads that preceded settlement were, in the understanding of the era’s policymakers, the first step in a process that would eventually produce towns, farms, ranches, and the full apparatus of American civilization.