The Wild West or American Old West is usually considered to be in the time frame from the end of the American Civil War to about 1900. When talking about the Wild West you are talking about a very large area, usually from North Dakota down to Texas and everything west of those states. That meant these states were the edge of the new frontier, where the rules changed from the civilized east to the lawlessness of the Wild West. People from the northeast were fascinated by the stories they read of the west, where place like Kansas City which is only about 1200 miles from New York City, had so much openness and possibilities but also danger. This was the place where you could get away from the city and have a home on the range. Or if you were a loner type you could become a cowboy and just ride the open range. Here you could be like the knight errant of medieval Europe, riding around on your faithful horse sticking to your personal code of honor, helping those in need or distress and fighting the bad guys. But even in this Wild West there were towns where people would come together to form communities and bring order to this order less area.

This sometimes pitted towns people against the open range people and resulted in range wars. Business people usually like stability, ranchers wanted open range for their cattle to graze and to be able to have a cattle drive to deliver the beef to the east, railroad barons wanted to be able to lay railroad tracks everywhere and have stability to bring people and goods safely to their destinations. In the depiction of the Wild West in early books and films there were always the good guys and the bad guys, the bad guys could range from outlaws to Indians. It was not until more recent times that Indians were shown to be anything but bad. People began to see that sometimes it was the Government or the settlers or business people were the bad ones, trying to take advantage of the Indians. Such as the Lakota Indians which were given a big reservation that included the Black Hills and no military presence, but then once gold was found in the Black Hills war broke out with the leaders of the Lakota trying to save their people from repeated attacks and violations of the treaty which gave them the reservation.

Western Ornaments and Literature:

When people talk about the Wild West, visions of openness, freedom and of life in black and white terms are conjured up. This has lead to western themes in ornaments, gifts and decorations. This has also lead to what some people call a state of mind, that they feel a western theme implies not only a life style but a way of life, a set of codes or personal honor. Some people decorate their entire house in a western theme using a cowboy sculpture, while others just do a western Christmas theme using such items as clay ornaments or cowboy Santa or even a cactus Christmas tree.