Go West, young man!" said an American newspaper in 1850. And thousands of Americans went. But people started moving to the American West nearly fifty years earlier. In 1803, American president Thomas net Jefferson. bought thousands of kilometres of land from thir the French for fifteen million dollars. The land was west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains. (In today's United States you can find Nebraska, Iowa, poi Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Louisiana there. The next year, Jefferson asked two men to go through this land to the Pacific. When you find flowers and trees Mi by the road. look carefully at them and write about them,' Ar Jefferson said. And talk to the people, too.' These two men were Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. In May 1804, Lo Lewis and Clark went west with forty-six men It was November 1805 when they arrived at the Pacific. These were the early years of the 'Wild West'. A time when the names Kit Carson, sitting Bu Wyatt Earp. Wild Bill Hickok. Butch Cassidy. Annie oakley, and many be more, became famous across America.