-Women have gathered, grown, and processed the vegetables and animals that fed and clothed their families, have constructed and maintained dwellings

-Women have taken part in the rituals and creative activities that nurture the connections of kinship, spirit, and trade.

-Because of the need for teachers, Western women were allowed to attend universities; many of them went on to become school administrators and serve on state boards of education.

-They were also instrumental in helping run missions, churches and schools for Native Americans.
-Just as the West could not have developed without water, the region never could have flourished without important contributions from the women who lived there.

MYTH
-Gun Fights
-Standoffs
-Bar Fights
-Bandits
-Horse Chases

Reality
-Many groups of settlers and explorers peacefully interacted with one another, overcoming problems such as unknown weather conditions and unmapped territories.

- The fact that almost each person carried a six-shooter meant that each had a relatively equal amount of power. That minimized violence.
-Settlers quickly evolved laws and regulations to govern many towns in the west.

-The office of U.S. Marshal is the oldest American federal law enforcement office. It was created by the Judiciary Act of 1789. It assumed its current name in 1969.

-As our young nation expanded westward, U.S. Marshals embodied the civilian power of the Federal Government to bring law and justice to the frontier.

-the U.S. Marshals made their mark on history, becoming synonymous with the “Wild West.” In the lawless frontier towns of the American west, marshals were once again the only bastion of federal law.

-When a marshal needed some extra man-power, he formed a posse and deputized all local men who were willing to help.

-Most people welcomed the safety and stability a lawman could bring to a town, limiting the activities of the rowdy and sometimes murderous outlaws that roamed the plains.

-Fort Smith is the second-largest city in Arkansas and one of the two county seats of Sebastian County. With an estimated population of 87,443 in 2012.

-The site of Fort Smith became part of the United States in the Louisiana Purchase (1803). Soon after, the Pike Expedition (1806) explored the Arkansas River.

-Fort Smith was founded in 1817 as a military post. Around the fort a small settlement began forming, but the Army abandoned the first Fort Smith in 1824 and moved 80 miles further west to Fort Gibson

-Fort Smith's name comes from General Thomas Adams Smith (1781–1844), who commanded the United States Army Rifle Regiment in 1817.

-General Smith never visited the town or forts that bore his name.

-William Clarke Quantrill (July 31, 1837 – June 6, 1865) was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War.

-The most significant event in Quantrill's guerrilla career took place on August 21, 1863.

-Lawrence had been seen for years as the stronghold of the anti-slavery forces in Kansas and as a base of operation for incursions into Missouri by pro-Union forces. It was also the home of James H. Lane, a senator infamous in Missouri for his staunch anti-slavery views.

-Early on the morning of August 21, Quantrill descended from Mount Oread and attacked Lawrence at the head of a combined force of as many as 450 guerrillas.

-Senator Lane, a prime target of the raid, managed to escape through a cornfield in his nightshirt, but the guerrillas, on Quantrill's orders, killed 183 men and boys "old enough to carry a rifle"

- Quantrill eventually ended up in Kentucky where he was mortally wounded in a Union ambush in May 1865, aged 27.