<Tr> <Td> Sep 28--30 </Td> <Td> Mexican folk hero Juan Cortina and a large posse seize control of Brownsville, Texas in one of the major actions of the First Cortina War . His motivation is the legal abuses perpetrated by Texan authorities against ethnic Mexicans . The occupation only lasts two days, but the Cortina Troubles continue for another two years . </Td> </Tr> <Table> <Tr> <Th> Year </Th> <Th> Date </Th> <Th> Event </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1860 </Td> <Td> Feb 26 </Td> <Td> Hundreds of Wiyot people are massacred by white settlers along the coast of what is now Humboldt County, California . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Apr 14 </Td> <Td> The Pony Express completes its first westbound and eastbound deliveries between St. Joseph, Missouri and San Francisco, California . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Dec 18 </Td> <Td> Texas Rangers under Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross attack a Comanche camp at the Battle of Pease River, where they discover Cynthia Ann Parker 24 years after her kidnapping . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1861 </Td> <Td> Jan 29 </Td> <Td> Kansas is admitted to the Union as the 34th U.S. state, and a free state . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Feb </Td> <Td> A series of hostilities involving U.S. Army Lt. George Nicholas Bascom and Chiricahua Apache chief Cochise triggers the Chiricahua Wars, which remain a central conflict in Arizona and New Mexico for the next 25 years . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Feb 1 </Td> <Td> A convention of the Texas legislature votes to secede from the Union . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Feb 28 </Td> <Td> Colorado is organized as a U.S. territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Mar 2 </Td> <Td> The Nevada Territory and Dakota Territory are organized . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Mar 16 </Td> <Td> Governor of Texas Sam Houston is evicted from office for refusing to take an oath of loyalty to the Confederate States of America . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Mar 28 </Td> <Td> The southern half of the New Mexico Territory nominally joins the Confederacy as the Provisional Confederate Territory of Arizona . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jul 25 </Td> <Td> 250 Confederate troops led by John R. Baylor engage Union forces under Isaac Lynde at Mesilla, New Mexico, resulting in Lynde's troops retreating into the Organ Mountains, toward Fort Stanton . Lynde is relieved of duty after abandoning his post . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Sep 2 </Td> <Td> A small Confederate patrol from Fort Stanton is ambushed by Mescalero Apache warriors in New Mexico's Gallinas Mountains . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Oct 24 </Td> <Td> The first transcontinental telegraph line is completed near Fort Bridger in present - day Wyoming, the result of an effort by Hiram Sibley and Western Union to connect California to the telegraph networks of the east . The ability to instantaneously send messages from coast to coast immediately makes the Pony Express obsolete . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1862 </Td> <Td> Winter </Td> <Td> Months of record precipitation in the far west culminate in the Great Flood of 1862, which turns California's Central Valley into an inland sea and causes millions of dollars in property damage . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Feb--Apr </Td> <Td> Confederate forces under Brigadier General Henry Hopkins Sibley and Colonel Thomas Green undertake one of the most ambitious military operations of the American Civil War when they begin the New Mexico Campaign . Their goals include seizing the Colorado gold fields and securing roads by which to invade California and Mexico . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Feb 20--21 </Td> <Td> The Battle of Valverde is fought at a ford of Valverde Creek in present - day New Mexico, resulting in a Confederate victory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Mar 26--28 </Td> <Td> The Battle of Glorieta Pass is fought in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains between Confederate cavalry forces and Union volunteers from Colorado and New Mexico . It marks a turning point in the New Mexico Campaign in favor of the Union . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Mar 30 </Td> <Td> The Battle of Stanwix Station is fought at a Butterfield Overland Mail stagecoach stop 80 miles east of Yuma, Arizona between Capt . William P. Calloway of the California Column and Confederate 2nd Lt. Jack Swilling . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Apr 15 </Td> <Td> The Battle of Picacho Pass is fought between the 1st California Cavalry under Union Lt. James Barrett and a detachment of Arizona Confederates led by Sgt . Henry Holmes . It is often cited as the westernmost battle of the American Civil War, occurring 50 miles northwest of Tucson . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> May 5 </Td> <Td> Confederate Sgt . Sam Ford and his men are ambushed by Apache warriors led by Cochise in the Dragoon Mountains, near present - day Benson, Arizona, at the First Battle of Dragoon Springs . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> May 9 </Td> <Td> The Second Battle of Dragoon Springs is fought in retaliation for the deaths of the four Confederates killed at the Apache ambush four days earlier . Rebels under Capt . Sherod Hunter take back the cattle stolen by Cochise and his warriors and kill five Apaches . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> May 20 </Td> <Td> The Homestead Act of 1862 is signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln . It aims to encourage settlement in the West by simplifying the process of land acquisition: homesteaders need only claim, occupy for five years, and improve a minimum of 160 acres of unappropriated land to be granted full ownership . Alternatively, settlers have the option of purchasing the land outright after six months of residency . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jul 15--16 </Td> <Td> 140 Union troops from the California Column are ambushed by 500 Apaches under Mangas Coloradas and Cochise at the Battle of Apache Pass in Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains . It is one of the first battles in which the United States Army is able to effectively use artillery against Indians . Fort Bowie is built near the site following the battle . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Aug 10 </Td> <Td> More than 30 people are killed when a group of Unionist German Texan settlers fleeing the Texas Hill Country for Mexico is attacked by a Confederate detachment along the Nueces River . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Aug 17 </Td> <Td> The Dakota War of 1862 begins when a Sioux hunting party slaughters five white settlers and the tribal council decides to attack white settlements throughout the Minnesota River valley . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Nov 5 </Td> <Td> More than 300 Santee Sioux in Minnesota are sentenced to hang for the rape and murder of white settlers . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1863 </Td> <Td> Jan 1 </Td> <Td> Daniel Freeman submits the first claim under the Homestead Act of 1862 for land near Beatrice, Nebraska . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jan 18 </Td> <Td> Chiricahua Apache leader Mangas Coloradas is captured, tortured, and killed by U.S. Army sentries after meeting with Brigadier General Joseph Rodman West to call for peace . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jan 29 </Td> <Td> Colonel Patrick Edward Connor leads his troops to fight Shoshone Indians in present - day Idaho, resulting in the Bear River Massacre . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Feb 24 </Td> <Td> The Arizona Territory is organized from a portion of the New Mexico Territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Mar 4 </Td> <Td> Idaho is organized as a U.S. territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Aug 21 </Td> <Td> Confederate guerrillas led by William Quantrill set fire to the pro-Union town of Lawrence, Kansas and kill nearly 200 civilians in the Lawrence massacre . Quantrill claims his motive was revenge for the Sacking of Osceola several years earlier . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Aug 25 </Td> <Td> In the aftermath of the Lawrence massacre, Union General Thomas Ewing Jr. issues General Order No. 11, which forces the expulsion of all residents who cannot prove their allegiance to the Union from four counties in rural western Missouri . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1864 </Td> <Td> </Td> <Td> John Bozeman leads a group of about 2,000 settlers along the Bozeman Trail, a new cutoff route connecting the Oregon Trail with the gold fields of southwestern Montana, which he and John Jacobs had blazed the previous year . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jan </Td> <Td> Colonel Kit Carson accepts the surrender of most of the Navajo nation after the final two years of the bloody Navajo Wars . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> May 26 </Td> <Td> Montana is organized as a U.S. territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jul </Td> <Td> Outlaw Jim Reynolds and his gang plunder and rob settlements in the South Park Basin of the Colorado Territory in an attempt to loot the gold mines of the region to support the fledgling Confederacy . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Sep 27 </Td> <Td> Pro-Confederate bushwhackers led by William "Bloody Bill" Anderson capture and execute 24 unarmed Union soldiers at a rail depot in Centralia, Missouri . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Oct 23 </Td> <Td> Union General Samuel R. Curtis' Army of the Border decisively defeats Confederate General Sterling Price's Army of Missouri at the Battle of Westport, near Kansas City . The battle ends the last major Confederate offensive west of the Mississippi River . The largest engagement in the Trans - Mississippi Theater, with over 30,000 men involved, it is sometimes called the "Gettysburg of the West". </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Oct 25 </Td> <Td> In consecutive engagements only hours apart, Union cavalry under Alfred Pleasonton pursue and defeat Confederate forces under Sterling Price at Marais des Cygnes, Mine Creek, and Marmiton River as they retreat through Kansas and Missouri . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Oct 31 </Td> <Td> Nevada is admitted as the 36th U.S. state . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Nov 29 </Td> <Td> Colonel John Chivington and his volunteer militia massacre a peaceful Cheyenne village near Sand Creek in the Colorado Territory, in what is later called the Sand Creek massacre . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1865 </Td> <Td> Feb 17 </Td> <Td> Fort Buchanan is overrun and destroyed by Chiricahua warriors in the Arizona Territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> May 12--13 </Td> <Td> The Battle of Palmito Ranch is fought near Brownsville, Texas . It is the final armed engagement of the American Civil War . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jun 23 </Td> <Td> Stand Watie, a Cherokee cavalry commander in the Confederate Army, becomes the last Confederate general to surrender to Union forces, at Doaksville in the Indian Territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jul 21 </Td> <Td> "Wild Bill" Hickok kills gambler Davis Tutt in a shootout in Springfield, Missouri . The confrontation is sensationalized in Harper's Magazine, making Hickok a household name . It is often considered the archetypal one - on - one quick - draw duel, which later becomes a popular image of the Old West . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1866 </Td> <Td> Feb 13 </Td> <Td> Ex-Confederate bushwhackers Frank and Jesse James rob their first bank, the Clay County Savings Association in Liberty, Missouri . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Spring </Td> <Td> The period of the great cattle drives begins when Texas ranchers drive more than 260,000 head of cattle to assorted markets . Some travel east to Louisiana, where the animals are shipped to Cairo, Illinois and St. Louis; others travel west to Fort Sumner, New Mexico and Denver, inaugurating the Goodnight - Loving Trail . But the vast majority follow the Shawnee Trail north to Kansas City or Sedalia, Missouri . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Dec 21 </Td> <Td> Captain William J. Fetterman and 80 soldiers of the U.S. 2nd Cavalry and 18th Infantry regiments are ambushed and wiped out by Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming . A fort built the next year, Fort Fetterman, is named in his honor . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1867 </Td> <Td> Mar 1 </Td> <Td> Nebraska is admitted as the 37th U.S. state . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jun 25 </Td> <Td> Lucien B. Smith of Kent, Ohio is issued the first patent for barbed wire fencing, an invention which revolutionizes cattle ranching on the open prairies of the West . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Aug 2 </Td> <Td> In the Wagon Box Fight, a small party of U.S. Army soldiers and civilians near Fort Phil Kearny, armed with new rapid - fire breech - loading rifles and encircled by a wall of wagon boxes, manages to hold off hundreds of Lakota warriors led by Red Cloud and Crazy Horse . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Oct 21--28 </Td> <Td> The Medicine Lodge Treaty is signed between the U.S. government and several southern Plains Indian tribes, requiring that the tribes relocate to the Indian Territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1868 </Td> <Td> Apr 29 </Td> <Td> The Treaty of Fort Laramie (1868) is signed between the United States and several bands of Lakota, Dakota, and Arapaho Indians . It results in the abandonment of U.S. military outposts along the Bozeman Trail, the indefinite closure of the Powder River Country and western South Dakota to white settlement, and the end of Red Cloud's War . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jul 25 </Td> <Td> Wyoming is organized as a U.S. territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Nov 27 </Td> <Td> The Battle of Washita River is fought when Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's 7th Cavalry Regiment attacks a winter encampment of Southern Cheyenne Indians on the Washita River in what is now western Oklahoma . Chief Black Kettle, leader of the Cheyenne, is killed . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1869 </Td> <Td> Jan 8 </Td> <Td> Fort Sill is established by General Philip H. Sheridan in the Indian Territory, near present - day Lawton, Oklahoma . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> May 10 </Td> <Td> Leland Stanford drives the Golden Spike to join the rails of the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads at a special ceremony in Promontory Summit, Utah Territory, completing the First Transcontinental Railroad . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> May 24 </Td> <Td> John Wesley Powell and nine others embark on a scientific expedition that charts more than 930 miles of the Green River and Colorado River through the canyon country of Wyoming, Colorado, Utah, and Arizona . Powell and his crew become the first recorded white men to travel the length of the Grand Canyon . They reach the mouth of the Virgin River in present - day Nevada on August 30 . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Jul 4 </Td> <Td> The world's first documented competitive rodeo is held in the town of Deer Trail in the Colorado Territory . </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> Dec 10 </Td> <Td> Wyoming becomes the first U.S. territory to grant women the right to vote . </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Th> Year </Th> <Th> Date </Th> <Th> Event </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Td> 1860 </Td> <Td> Feb 26 </Td> <Td> Hundreds of Wiyot people are massacred by white settlers along the coast of what is now Humboldt County, California . </Td> </Tr>

Historical events in the west region of the united states