Hello! I’m an Historian who specializes in Texas History and local Texas histories. Your question is one that I’ve seen and encountered often, and one that I really enjoy answering because of my familiarity with the Old West (AKA: “Wild West”).

A good reference to use, albeit a Texas History book, is Glen Ely’s “Where the West Begins”. Ely, like me, is a Texan who always pondered the question as to if our state should be considered Southern or Western? And where the separation of those two regions in Texas begins, based on the historical and cultural differences. It’s a great book, and offers an extensive study of the differences between West and East Texas.

Glen Ely, in his work, offers the conclusion that (at least for Texas) the West begins around the cities of Temple and Waco (west bank of the Brazos) and then proceeds to the Rio Grande. As someone who has also studied and traveled those portions of the state, I’d have to agree as well.

The Old West covered an immense expanse of the western United States. I’d conclude saying that, based on the historical events of the timeframe, the vast majority of the Mid-West, West, and Southwest states would be considered the Old West.

To answer your question further, I’ve always labeled the Old West era as being between 1865 and 1900. The Louisiana Purchase, the Mexican Session, the Indian Wars of the 1840s and ‘50s, and the Gold Rush of 1849 are all just pre-cursors to the Old West era.

The Civil War interrupted the early development of the Old West, and in itself became the opening chapter of the book. Some historians might extend the closing date to 1917, when the US entered the First World War, so therefore it would take in the war in the Philippines, the Mexican Revolution, and the Pershing Expedition.

It was during this timeframe (1865-1900) that one really see’s the development of the cattle trails, railroads, western settlements, mining towns, etc. in western America and the American Southwest. Additionally, most of the more notable characters of the Old West (Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, Bat Masterson, John Wesley Hardin, etc.) all came to the history books in this timeframe.

I hope this helps!

Excellent question. Thanks for posting.

I will attempt to answer this for you in some detail. I’ll also post a summary of the answer at the end, as this will be a rather lengthy answer.

First, let us come to a common vernacular on the topic which we are discussing. Let’s use the words “The West” and “Frontier,” as opposed to “Old West” or “Wild West,” as they are more appropriate terms going back to the beginning of history of the American West as a sub-discipline of American history. These terms fit better with the answer to your question. I believe you will see why these terms fit your question better than “Wild West” as we proceed. “Old West,” in the context of original America Western history, means something vastly different than Texas, Montana, etc., so we will reserve that term for discussion of that concept.

Fredrick Jackson Turner, the historian and professor who pioneered the teaching and study of the American West argues in his seminal work “The Significance of the Frontier in American History”{ full version | excerpts } that the US’s western frontier (or “The West”) was actually a fluid concept, which goes to the heart of your question, to wit:

“American development has exhibited not merely advance along a single line, but a return to primitive conditions on a continually advancing frontier line, and a new development for that area. American social development has been continually beginning over again on the frontier.”

(Turner makes multiple social arguments in his work on the contributions of this development to the concept of American Exceptionalism, etc. We won’t address that as it doesn’t specifically relate to your answer.)

Turner argues in his thesis that the concept of the American frontier or the West and westward expansion actually begins in the 1690s with Massacuttes, and continues from there. (See Turner, Chapter II):

“The settler on the outskirts of Puritan civilization took up the task of bearing the brunt of attack and pushing forward the line of advance which year after year carried American settlements into the wilderness. In American thought and speech the term "frontier" has come to mean the edge of settlement, rather than, as in Europe, the political boundary.”

Turner (also citing others) argues that the “Old West” was much farther East:

“There is, then, a western area intermediate between the coastal colonial settlements of the seventeenth century and the trans-Alleghany settlements of the latter portion of the eighteenth century. This section I propose to isolate and discuss under the name of the Old West, and in the period from about 1676 to 1763. It includes the back country of New England, the Mohawk Valley, the Great Valley of Pennsylvania, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Piedmont--that is, the interior or upland portion of the South, lying between the Alleghanies and the head of navigation of the Atlantic rivers marked by the ‘fall line.’” (Turner, at Chapter III)

Turner went on to consider the “Middle West,” Ohio Valley, and Mississippi Valley as separate frontiers for the US. On the Middle West, he wrote:

“Once "the West" described the whole region beyond the Alleghanies; but the term has hopelessly lost its definiteness. The rapidity of the spread of settlement has broken down old usage, and as yet no substitute has been generally accepted. The "Middle West" is a term variously used by the public, but for the purpose of the present paper, it will be applied to that region of the United States included in the census reports under the name of the North Central division, comprising the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin (the old "Territory Northwest of the River Ohio"), and their trans-Mississippi sisters of the Louisiana Purchase, --Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South, Dakota.” (See Turner at Chapter IV)

This concept of the fluid frontier and the advancing west mean that many places and states can claim some aspect of frontier heritage although they certainly aren’t the nation’s true western boundary any longer.

Turner believed, and generations of those who studied the American West under the pedagogy he, and others, pioneered or advanced would have held that the “frontier” in the US ended with the 1890 census because of population density and settlement. (Turner, at Chapter I)

The case could easily be made, however that the “frontier” concept of the West extended further in time to the settlement rush in Oklahoma or even the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as states.

Patricia Nelson Limerick, a historian of the New West and a revisionist, would disagree with Turner on both his time concepts and the rigidity with which he defined “the West,” as well as the manner in which he actually created and defined it as a separate aspect of American history.

With this overview, let’s get to your specific question piece by piece.

“The Wild West is from like west of the Mississippi River to the Pacific.”

Not necessarily. In the overly romanticized version of the “Wild West” that may be true. But in the history of the west and frontier, that has been a continually moving line since the 1690s.

“What I don’t understand is the general time frame of the Wild West”

For the romanticized version of the west, 1865 forward as you state isn’t wrong. However, the answer really depends upon whether you subscribe more to Turner’s theories or not. His general time frame of the West and frontier would be 1690s to 1890. Others would extend it to the annexation of Alaska and Hawaii. Historians have different concepts about this that vary from different milestone events. The answer taught in history classes for decades was Turner’s: that the frontier ended in 1890 with the determination the west had been settled by that time.

“Texas I would automatically say is part of the Wild West but I don’t understand how the Mexican Session and Louisiana Purchase is considered part of the Wild West.”

They are so considered as part of the West because they were at times the American frontier and points westward under Turner’s thesis which for decades governed how most historians viewed the American west.

Again, remember the definition of “The West” is fluid in Turner’s thesis, and that Turner defined how the subject would be taught for at least 75 years.

Many of the questions and points you bring up in your post are actually questions that both go to the heart of Turner’s thesis AND to why historians of the New West disagree with some of Turner’s concepts.

In summary: For most of the 20th century, the teaching of the history of the American West was based largely on the ideas of Fredrick Jackson Turner. Turner believed the concept of “the west” and “the frontier” were moving targets geographically based on settlement. This is why many states have frontier or Western heritage, but are not in today’s geographic American West. In terms of time frame, Turner would argue the 1890s as the end of West. However, one can argue that the West and frontier days extended up to the annexation of Alaska and Hawaii, or World War I, World War II or any number of other milestones that created rapid change or growth in the West. Both time frame and geographic definition of the West can be regarded as either following along with Turner’s more rigid time and regional definitions associated with a fluid frontier line from the 1690s, or with a less rigid standard as New West historians would argue.