There are still bandits and gangs etc everywhere of course, but the kind of uniquely frontier skullduggery that we characterize as the wild west ended when frontier towns became connected to the national infrastructure and law enforcement was able to stretch their control over most of the territory they nominally claimed as their own. Both allowed military and law enforcement to cover a wider area and gave bandits fewer safe places to hide. It ended for good when the national highway system was built. The wild west began to end with the extension of transcontinental rail. If you're wondering when this period ended I'd suggest There were indeed gunfighters, etc., yet these men were famous because they were not the norm rather than because the West was a place of total anarchy where the only things that mattered were whisky, bullets, and gold.

The classic John Wayne view of the West though? Well, in part it did exist. Though in that latter regard I'd note that the final Indian confrontations were often very low key affairs involving only a few rebel Apache often rebelling more over a civic dispute than fighting a full blown war. At this point all Western territories are States and the Indian troubles are over. Essentially what you had in this period was the bulk of existing territories reaching maturity and a slackening in the headlong Westward rush of migration that had made the West what it was.Īnother candidate is at the end of the last Indian War, in 1924. It is also during this period that the great Westward rush of American population began to slow, and indeed in many areas even regressed. During this period you see the admission of a great number of territories to statehood. However, I would suggest the period between 1889-1900 as the time when the 'Wild West' began to transition itself away.

This depends on how one defines the 'Wild West'.

Wild west frontier game pen and inkwell