Alkali Trails Author:William Holden For much of the first half century after statehood, West Texas remained a frontier wilderness and - unlike the expanding cities in East and Central Texas - sparsely populated with Anglo-American settlements. The scarce rainfalls, freezing blue northers, dusty winds, and scorching heat waves dissuaded many Texans from homesteading west of the U.S... more ». Army's frontier fort system. For decades, only the hardiest attempted to forge their brand of civilization on the West Texas plains. Yet as the nineteenth century advanced so did the westward line of settlement. Cattle ranching ensured the rise of schools, churches, and towns as the great ranches of West Texas fed the nation's ever-growing demand for beef. William Curry Holden's examination of the social and economic evolution of what is perhaps America's harshest frontier was first published during the Great Depression. Since then, Alkali Trails has become an essential and most accessible source for professional and lay historians of the American West.« less