Bad Land (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Jonathan Raban
- First Published: 1996
- Type of Work: Current history
- Time of Work: 1907-1995
- Setting: Ismay, Mildred, and other small towns of eastern Montana
- Principal Characters: Jonathan Raban, Percy Wollaston, Evelyn Cameron
- Genres: Nonfiction, Current affairs, History
- Subjects: United States or Americans, American Dream, Immigration or emigration, Farms, farmers, or farming, Photography or photographers, Agriculture, Railroads, Frontier or pioneer life
- Locales: Montana
From the spring of 1907 through the fall of 1908, the Milwaukee Road railroad worked its way through the Dakotas into eastern Montana. As the line advanced across the land, it created cities with unlikely names such as Ismay and Mildred. No one lived in these towns until the railroad agents distributed pamphlets all over the United States and Europe describing the fertile terrain, and the government—with the railroad’s help—passed the 1908 Homestead Act. Then the settlers came, by train, and settled on the land and filled up the towns. For the first years, the weather was good,...
[The entire page is 1948 words long]
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