A narrow trail hugs the sides of a mesa and descends into a valley etched by deep ravines and bordered by other large mesas. This scene in Bayard, Nebraska, would have been a common one for pioneers heading west on the Oregon Trail in the mid-1800s in search of land and fortunes in gold.

One such pioneer wrote of the prairie: "Imagine the ocean, when the waves are rolling mountain high, becoming solid and covered with beautiful green grass, and you have some faint idea of it."

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "The Itch to Move West: Life and Death on the Oregon Trail," August 1986, National Geographic magazine)