Creating the American West: boundaries and borderlands

Abstract

Creating the American West: and Borderlands. By Derek R. Everett. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014. Pp. xv, 302. Acknowledgments, illustrations, maps, appendix, notes, bibliography, index. $29.95.)As a graduate student at the University of Arkansas, Derek Everett raised eyebrows at conferences when he espoused the notion that state borders were as important as national ones. Well, over time Everett modified his ideas and funnelcd his energy and talents into a dissertation that became this fine book, Creating the American West. It is well researched, mining a variety of national and state archives, many state and local newspapers, and a good run on the western historiography. The result is a useful text on why many of the western states are shaped the way they are, how state borders came about, and how occasional boundary controversies and disputes were resolved. But unlike Mark Stein's How the States Got Their Shapes (2008), Everett looks specifically at the trans-Mississippi United States and goes much more in depth to analyze the history and significance of boundary-making. Along the way, the book is a great deal of fun! It is replete with interesting and humorous anecdotes about state creation, the fun that can come with map-making, and shows that history need not be a dry and dull subject (lest anyone out there still thinks it may be!). Each chapter engages the reader with a useful hook, including that of chapter 6 about Frank Sinatra's interest in state lines, as he performed in Lake Tahoe in a resort that straddled the California-Nevada boundary.But some readers will still wonder, so what?, with the significance of the topic coming across better in some chapters than in others. After two excellent background chapters (Precedent for Western Boundaries and Early in the Trans-Mississippi West), Everett explores six case studies. These include chapters on the western Arkansas boundary (which first appeared as an article in the Spring 2008 issue of the Arkansas Historical Quarterly), the Missouri-Iowa border, the boundaries of Oregon Country, the history of the Califomia-Nevada line, the New Mexico-Colorado border, and that dividing North and South Dakota. The chapter on New Mexico-Colorado has the best analysis of borderlands and what that might mean between states. But Everett missed an opportunity to discuss why the line between these two states is not necessarily straight in places. …