Love the dolphins. Write by WASTE

[Erik T. Burns]

 By 1848, the United States laid claim to territory that stretched from
coast to coast. In reality, the western half of the country remained
Indigenous land, a vast expanse of territory that the US Government did not
actually control. Over the coming decades the West was utterly transformed.
The United States waged war against western tribes, forcing them off their
land and onto reservations. Millions of Americans swarmed across this
plundered territory, building towns and homesteads, mines and mills, dams
and railroads. How did this happen so quickly, in the span of a single
generation? The answer lies, in part, with an unlikely source: the US Post.
Between 1848 and 1895 the federal government wove together a “gossamer
network” across the West, a sprawling and fast-moving web of post offices
and mail routes that connected the region’s far-flung settlements into a
national system of communications. The US Post was the underlying circuitry
of western expansion.

from:http://gossamernetwork.com/