In physical features the Platte River route was similar to that
of the Arkansas Valley. Each at its eastern extremity, for a few
days' travel, passed over the rolling grass-covered and
flower-besprinkled prairies ere it broke into the high and dry
lands of the Plains, with their green or grey or brown covering
of practically flowerless short grasses. But between the two
trails of the Arkansas and the Platte there existed certain wide
differences. At the middle of the nineteenth century the two
trails were quite distinct in personnel, if that word may be
used. The Santa Fe Trail showed Spanish influences; that of the
Platte Valley remained far more nearly American.
Thus far the frontier had always been altering the man who came
to it; and, indirectly, always altering those who dwelt back of
the frontier, nearer to the Appalachians or the Atlantic. A new
people now was in process of formation--a people born of a new
environment. America and the American were conceiving. There was
soon to be born, soon swiftly to grow, a new and lasting type of
man. Man changes an environment only by bringing into it new or
better transportation.
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