Free Cowboy Dictionary – Letter O – useful words of the cowboy lifestyle – definitions, terminology, slang, jargon, word origins

Old West – The American states lying west of the Mississippi River. Prior to the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, the terms “Far West” and “Old West” referred to the region west of the Appalachian mountains, especially the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. Following the westward expansion of the 19th century, those terms usually designated the area west of the Mississippi.

The “Old West” began with the “gateway states” of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, and Louisiana, and included all territory to the west, regardless of statehood status.