Follow the Trail, Win the West follows a single character whose life story illustrates the real history of western expansion. Attempting to trace that history led me to study legal and financial issues, local, state, and federal government maneuvering, politics, and racial conflicts. There's no doubt that it is a complex story and no doubt that I found it all much more intriguing than cowboy, John Wayne, or mountain men legends. It's my hope that readers will enjoy the complexity and become as intrigued as I have. If so, they may see relevant parallels in our age of division with this previous age, the age that finally led to the US Civil War.

Searching out all the details led me to many fine local librarians and historians. Meeting and communicating with them became a favorite activity. Small towns like Painted Post, NY, Mitchell, IA, Eureka, CA and others all have people dedicated to preserving their local history, and all I had to do was express my interest and they helped and then helped some more. I go into some detail about their efforts, and I attempt to express my appreciation in the Afterword, subtitled Source Notes. In the age of the Web, I do not use traditional source notations and instead concentrate on praising the really helpful people and sources. Finally, I want to express heartfelt thanks to my persevering editor, a true professional and careful reader, Carol Van Mater-Miner. Without her help, dear readers, you would have had good reason to say, often, something like "What?"