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After going through this book I found that the bison played a bigger role than I thought they did. Especially before the cattle and ranching came into play .They were apart of everything from the native americans making a living on the plains to the spanish looking for gold, to Anglo americans. The Bison supplied them with so many things, like food and clothing. I think the bison gave some of these explorers hope, it kept them alive, with out the bison some of these explorers would have never accomplished their tasks.When I read this book, the most interesting things that stood out were the things that made the great plains the great plains, like the adaptions, the inventions, the innovations. The Colt revolver very interesting to me, on how the original single shot wasn't enough against the indians attacks, and when the Colt six shooter came they could easily defeat the indians, especially on horseback, but I didn't know that Colt wasn't very successful of making his company big. The barbwire as we talkied in class never stood out to me before this class and book. Never would have thought it would have shaped the great plains. Later after the Indians, and after the cattle kingdom, came the railroad, which said by Webb "There can be no question that the railroads transformed american life on the plain" pg 279. I totally agree, these people who are moving west from the Antlantic, could soley rely on their own trades or skills to survive out on the plains, they needed help from the east coast and building the railroads brought what they needed to make the great plains a livible place. Then throughout the great plains towns were rising around these train lines. I believe Barbed wire shaped the great plains literally, you fenced your section, your yard your house, it seems like the great plains turned into a tetris game, fencing off sections into square shapes and into other square looking shapes. If you ever looked at google maps, go to the satellite tab, and zoom in on the prairies, and you can see the different sections just by the different crop that was planted, but some of those are fence off some aren't but I bet they were at one time, distinguishing one farmer's property from a another. The fencing also took out the known cowboy and the cattle drive because everyone was fencing off everything they had and even things that weren't theres.