Frontier Footprints: A True History of the Rocky Mountains by Amy Kathryn Allen

Previously

…They saw the gleaming engine, a creature of fire and smoke, and they understood, with a deep, unsettling certainty, that the world they knew was irrevocably changing. The wild heart of the Rockies, though still beating with a fierce, untamed rhythm, was beginning to yield, its ancient secrets slowly unraveling with each passing mile of track, each new claim staked, each dream pursued under the boundless, indifferent sky. The footprints of humanity, once tentative and fleeting, were becoming deeper, more permanent, etched into the very soul of the mountains.