From a State Parks and Cultural Resources press release:
Abraham Lincoln and his connection to the American West is the focus of a lecture by Dr. Richard W. Etulain at Fort Bridger State Park in Uinta County at 7 p.m., on Friday, October 3. Dr. Etulain is author of "Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific."
Sponsored by the Fort Bridger Historical Association, Dr. Etulain’s presentation, titled "Abraham Lincoln and the American West," will examine Lincoln’s important links to the West.
According to Dr. Etulain, Lincoln, even before the mid 1840s, was known as a man of the West. As president (1861-65), Lincoln connected with the trans-Mississippi American West. He supported the building of a transcontinental railroad, the launching of a homestead act, and the funding of land-grant agricultural schools. He dealt with complex Indian and military policies in lands beyond the Mississippi and continued to oppose slavery in western territories.
Lincoln is also credited with appointing more than 200 men to western political positions and in doing so, established the Republican Party as a political organization in these new western states and territories.
Dr. Etulain, a centennial historian at the John E. Riley Library at Northwest Nazarene College in Nampa, Idaho, is the author of "Lincoln Looks West: From the Mississippi to the Pacific.
FMI: Linda Newman-Byers, 307-782-3842
