Western Film History

The Western story begins in 1492, when Christopher Columbus discovers the New World.  Columbus and the other early explorers filled European literature with true-life accounts and illustrations of the “New World.”  

Their stories excited the European audience with their exploits and travel.  The “New World” becomes a base for rich stories of fantastic landscapes, striking animals, distinctive peoples, and their terrifying and inspiring adventures.

More Stories About
Western Film History

• An Explorers Journal

• Western Life: The Travel Journal

• The Story Development: The Western Novel

• Popular Fiction: The Dime Novel

• The Biography: Fact or Fiction
• The Stage Brings the Western to Life
• The Wild West Show
• Camera and Canvas
• Location, Location, Location
• Birth of the Western Film
• The Western Moves West
• “Broncho Billy” Anderson: The First Cowboy Star
• Indians in the Early Western
• An Early Western Industry: Bison 101
• D.W. Griffith and his Biograph Studio
• William S. Hart: The First King of the Cowboys
• Larger than Life: Tom Mix
• The End of the Silent Westerns: The 1920s
• The 1920s Big Budget Westerns
• Western Audience Profile
• The Series Western