All language subtitles for america in color s2e1

their exploits made famous by Buffalo Bill

and Annie Oakley

many come to make their fortunes

unleashing decades of brutality

and a struggle for law and order

the police are after the beings who did this rotten job

Hollywood mythologizes its past

the battle to tame the vast region

pushes the limits of modern technology

the mighty waters of the Colorado

were running unused to the sea

but in the west

nature never yields unless people pay a price

this is the story of America's Wild West

as you have never seen it before

I want us to be captain

as the 20th century dawns

the lands west of the Mississippi are largely wild

and untamed

the popular portrait of the west

is drawn by heroic frontier figures

like William F Cody better known as Buffalo Bill

his travelling cowboy show

romanticizes the glory days of the Wild West

Buffalo Bills show brings history to a crowd

but some sketches aren't for the faint hearted

such as the battle of Summit Springs

a notorious engagement of 1869

Bill was present at the battle

and many believed him responsible

for the death of Cheyenne chief Tall Bull

a star attraction in Bill Show

the legendary sharpshooter Annie Oakley

here she takes out clay pigeons with her Winchester

and she even gets her trusty dog Dave in on the act

Bill takes his show on the road

touring cities in the US and Europe

for more than 30 years

spreading his heroic vision of the west

as a place that modern civilization

is destined to conquer and control

among the many smitten by the romance of the west

is President Theodore Roosevelt

his love affair with nature is born in tragedy

in 1884 on the very same day

he loses both his wife and his mother

Distraught Roosevelt moves 15 miles from New York

to the Badlands in the Dakota Territory

he embraces the wide open spaces and becomes a rancher

he once wrote I owe more than I can express to the west

in 19:05 Roosevelt is serving his second term

on a trip to Oklahoma he meets Jack Abernathy

a man famed for catching wolves with his bare hands

a live wolf means big bucks

he can sell them for $50 each

more than $1,000 in today's money

he delivers over a thousand wolves to zoos

and travelling shows

he never gets bitten and earns the nickname

catch him Alive Jack

the region that's given rise to such

larger than life characters

is a place of imposing mountain ranges

treacherous rivers

forests and deserts

among the biggest challenges settling here is water

there is either too much of it or none at all

to tame the West

President Roosevelt understands

he must bring water under control

he commits federal funds

to irrigate 20 of America's western states

in 1911 the first project opens

on the Salt River in Arizona

it's named Theodore Roosevelt Dam

at a cost of $190 million today

it symbolizes his commitment to extend man's dominion

over the west

at the dedication ceremony he tells the Arizona crowd

I believe we will see 75 to 100,000 people here

his prediction comes true

55 miles away

a small desert city of 11,000

will be one of the first

to benefit from the power and water the dam provides

Phoenix will signify the dawn of a new American West

but this new west

has little room for its original inhabitants

in 19 American Indians number only 230,000

over the previous century

400,000 have died

killed by the wars and disease inflicted on them

by the newcomers to their continent

now most tribes have been forced by the government

to live on reservations

where many aren't recognised as US citizens

White America not only takes the American Indians land

it also tries to erase their culture

in 1913 a group of East Coast millionaires

funds an expedition to persuade dozens of tribes

to adopt the white man's ways

under the watchful eye of a military escort

its leaders claim to offer better treatment

for American Indians

in return the tribes must demonstrate

allegiance to the government and its flag

the expedition is LED by photographer Joseph Dixon

a man concerned with what he calls the vanishing race

here the Oglala Sioux

at the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota

host the delegation

among those who participate two moons

who commanded the Cheyenne against lieutenant colonel

Custer at the legendary battle of the Little Bighorn

the tribes are told

that allegiance will bring them a better tomorrow

but for decades to come

many of America's original inhabitants

will lead lives of poverty and isolation

the fight to dominate the west

also brings America into conflict with Mexico

in 1916 America's 2,000 mile border with its neighbour

is a flashpoint

Mexico is engulfed in a violent revolution

the US backs a faction LED by Venustiano Carranza

but his opponent

former bandit Ponchovia won't back down

on March 9th

Via's men cross the border

and attack the town of Columbus New Mexico

hoping to force the US into the war

18 Americans die

the country witnesses the carnage in newsreels

and poncho via gets his wish

general John Pershing leads 14,000 troops an aircraft

deep into America's rugged landscape to flush via out

by April 1916

US forces are pouring into Mexico

and the fighting is intense

skirmishes continue until January 1917

when diplomacy winds out and Pershing withdraws

ponchovia evades capture

and never strays north of the border again

but for the US

the conflict with Mexico has consequences that endure

for decades

thousands of Mexicans flee

the violence in their country

and look for work

on the farms of the American Southwest

where the irrigation projects

kicked off by Theodore Roosevelt

have been making the dry land fertile

Mexican immigrants provide the cheap labor to work it

agriculture flourishes with control of the west's water

but this precious resource will become a battleground

Los Angeles 1920

with over 500,000 inhabitants

it's the west's biggest city

the discovery of oil 20 years earlier

near present day Dodger Stadium

fuels the city's development

and an ever growing population

but to sustain that growth

the city still needs something just as important water

demand in LA exceeds the supply

the legendary engineer

William Mulhollen discovers a potential new source

Owens Lake over 160 miles northeast

on the eastern flank of the Sierra Nevada

to divert the lakes water down to the city

Moholen builds a vast system of pipes

sluices and spillways

it's an engineering marvel

but one that leaves less water for farmers

more trouble

and it's not the first time either

and ranchers

objecting to the cities cutting across their property

are suspected

angry farmers sabotage the aqueduct with dynamite

the police are after the beings who did this rotten job

let's hope they get them

LA repairs the aqueduct and keeps the water flowing

but by 1926 the Owens Lake bed is dry

today it's a salt flat

water scarcity shapes the history of the west

but so does

the abundance of a different natural resource

Over 800 miles north of Los Angeles

lies Portland Oregon

the one sleepy city now houses over 250,000 people

with its dense forests

the Pacific North West

is home to one of the west's biggest industries timber

by 1920 the region is

the source of a third of America's wood

it's transported across a vast railroad network

that's also a steady customer for wooden ties

in Wyoming's Medicine Bow National Forest

the Thomson family films itself preparing ties

they transport their hall free of charge

down the Laramie River to processing plants

nature can be bountiful in the west

but people's determination to bend it to their will

can have unforeseen consequences

by 1921 in Rain Star Arizona

irrigation gives rise to some 30,000 farms

at first they thrive banks offer easy credit to farmers

many invest in new machinery

but these would be masters of nature

or victims of their own success

farmers grow more than they can sell

fall into debt and face crisis

years before the devastating Dust Bowl of the 1930s

bankruptcy threatens a quarter of farms

across the country

it is known as the agricultural depression

many are ruined

the west's next boom

always seems to be just around the corner

in the mid 1920s

Eugene Standing Bear makes these home movies

of the American Indian Osage nation

he's married to Mary the daughter of Chief Fred Lookout

forced out of one place after another

the Osage are relocated here to northern Oklahoma

near the town of Pahuska

their new land seems to be worthless but in 1894

vast oil reserves are discovered on their territory

so the operators who lease the land

have to pay royalties to the Osage Nation

money that offers the tribe all the time they want

on the golf course

they become the richest people per capita in the world

many own more than 10 cars

some can even fly

a rare skill in the 1920s

but many American Indians are nowhere near as lucky

they live in poverty

and some still aren't even American citizens

in June 1924

President Calvin Coolidge

signs the Indian Citizenship Act

but some still won't have voting rights for decades

and remain skeptical of the government

that treats them so badly

the land they call home

is attracting more and more people from the east

to fuel the west's newest industry tourism

in 1925 most to make the track to the west

travel by train

there are few roads

but the rail network boasts

a quarter million miles of track

spreading all through the west

the Northern Pacific and Union Pacific

can drop you in the midst of spectacular beauty

top of the must see list are the new national parks

Theodore Roosevelt

a passionate conservationist

adds five national parks and 150 forests

to the roster of public land

most protected to this day by the federal government

films like this one by Burton Holmes from Chicago

capture the Grand Canyon

and Rocky Mountain National Park

a world famous traveller

homes pioneers

the travelogue

movies and accompanying lectures

shown to audiences back east

over the years

he gives 8,000 talks about his travels around the world

in the 1920s

he inspires a whole generation

to head west for adventure

and it's not just the vast landscapes

Americans want to experience

Buffalo Bills Old West for themselves

in 1926 Ernest Miller of the Elkhorn Ranch in Montana

convinces Max Goodsill of the Northern Pacific Railroad

that they should work together

their partnership sparks a new industry

railroad companies offer the enthusiastic tourist

a stopover with an authentic twist

the host ranchers nickname the City slickers

playing cowboys dudes

the name sticks and a business booms

dude ranches

they can bone up on essential cowboy skills

and dudes need new dads

no ranch is complete without the youngsters

and no youngsters happy

and thus here she has complete rig

that makes them feel like honest to goodness cowboys

home movies from the late 1920s

capture the love for family from Ohio

out near Wickenburg

Arizona on their dude ranch vacation

there's something for everyone in the family

for those with enough nerve a ride on a bucking Bronco

and no cowboy fantasy would be complete

without American Indians putting on a show

but new traditions have also begun

in 1927 in Gallup

New Mexico thousands gather for a special event

the town borders Navajo Hopi

Acoma and Zuni reservations

tribes who have long come to the town to trade

this is the sixth annual gathering

it's held every August

and known as the Inter Tribal Ceremonial

Tribes Parade through the town and down Route 66

Thomas Seymour of the Smithsonian Institution

captures rare footage

of an event that continues to this day

celebrating history

will help ensure the survival of many small

western towns

such as Tombstone Arizona

once famous for its silver

it now faces

the fate of many exhausted mining communities

becoming a ghost town

so it turns to its other claim to fame

being home to the most famous lawman of the west wider

and location of the infamous shootout at the OK corral

now tourists can experience the gunplay first hand

reenacted in the exact spot

where three of the Clanton Mcclory gang

were killed by DOC Holiday and his friends

the Earth Brothers

47 years earlier

in 1928 now age 79

the real wired lives in Mid City Los Angeles

his gun slinging days over

he works as a technical consultant

for the burgeoning movie industry

Hollywood has a huge appetite for Westerns

and his knowledge is priceless

on set one day

he meets an aspiring young actor named Marion Morrison

who's eager to walk and talk like a real cowboy

later he'll take the stage name John Wayne

Burp helps Hollywood crystallize

the romantic image of the Wild West

that still endures today

but while the myth is being harnessed nature

as always in the west proves harder to tame

for 15 miles

the Colorado River cuts through the west

from the Rocky Mountains to the Gulf of California

it's a powerful force of nature

and is historically prone to flooding

in 1922 it submerges 35,000 acres of farmland

in California's Palo Verde Valley

to keep the west's future on track

the Colorado will have to be tamed

so in 1929 President Herbert Hoover

finances a colossal new project upriver at Black Canyon

Nevada the Boulder Dam

later to be renamed the Hoover Dam

to accommodate the dam's workforce

the US government builds a new town

8 miles from the construction site

Boulder City

this sudden injection of jobs couldn't be more timely

Westerners have been hit hard by the Great Depression

urban unemployment is over 30%

while western mining output has been cut in half

farmers still suffering from

the agricultural depression

have been brought to their knees

for people desperate for work the dam is a godsend

the scale of the project dwarfs

anything in the nation's history

it requires

six different companies to come together to build it

among the contractors is the Henry J Kaiser Company

one of the west's top industrialists

Kaiser Notch's successes across the region

building roads

bridges and pipelines

at the peak of construction

the dam offers work to over 5,000

including a handful of Apaches

who are among the few American Indians to get work

they join a team of high scalers

swinging from the rock face

where they prepare dynamite charges

on September 30th, 1935 Hoover's successor

President Franklin D Roosevelt dedicates the dam

the mighty waters of the Colorado

were running on eels to the sea today

we translate them into a great national possession

cameras capture the moment

when the 12 outlet valves open for the first time

when the dam finally comes online in 1936

it's 17 turbines

produce over 4 billion kilowatts of power each year

supplying the vast regions of Arizona

Southern Nevada and Southern California

the Hoover Dam success inspires FTR

and he green lights 6 more

providing more electricity and jobs for the west

elsewhere in the west

another power source is set to explode

in Texas the discovery of oil back in 19 0 1

made many wealthy

so when the East Texas oil field gushes in 1930

the future looks bright

these are the home movies of Edwin B Hopkins

geologist and oil man

this is his newly found oil field

outside the boomtown of Kilgore

nearby the town of New London

pulls in revenue from taxes on oil land

money that in 1932

helps build this multi million dollar high school

$13 million today

but even the wealthy cut corners

sometimes with devastating effects

to save money

the school board taps directly into the local oil wells

natural gas supply

in the mid 1930s the gas is odorless

so on March 18th, 1937 when there is a leak

no one notices

by chance one class of kids moves from the high school

to an offside gymnasium

where they are filmed practicing the Mexican Hat dance

at 3:17 a spark caused by a shop teacher

triggers an explosion

300 students and staff die

I looked up just as the explosion occurred

it seemed to me that the brick

roof and debris were gone

three times higher

than any of the dereks around the school hands

after the tragedy

the industry adds a smell to natural gas

to make it detectable

a safety measure still in place today

in other parts of the west

the bold and ambitious find their own ways

to counter the hardships of the depression

the new record breaking streamliner train

is launched by Union Pacific Chairman W

Avril Harriman

this is the first step developing of a high speed

transcontinental train

to run from Chicago to the Civic Coast

passengers are delivered to another of his creations

the first destination ski resort

for wealthy vacationers

Sun Valley

nestled in Idaho's Smoky Mountains

it's a haven of winter fun for America's elite

it opens in 1936 and attracts Hollywood celebrities

like Claudette Colbert

Errol Flynn and his wife Lily Demita

and international playboys like the future Shaw of Iran

the west once seen as savage and remote

can now be a playground for the rich and famous

the west may becoming tamer

but some still seek to settle confrontations

the old way

a dispute over rides to Colorado River water

leads to a standoff between the states of California

and Arizona

the federal government gives California a bigger share

of the resources from its proposed new dam

formidable State Senator Nellie T

Bush speaks up for Arizona

water is the very life

of every foot of fertile land in the state of Arizona

the waters skirting along the banks of Arizona

should be divided

are shared equally

on November 10th

the Arizona National Guard moves in to halt

construction

Senator Bush provides ferries for transport

becoming the first admiral of land

locked Arizona's temporary navy

I believe the people of the state of Arizona

are justified in using drastic means

to circumvent this action

until its legality is established

but unlike the days of the Wild West

no shots are fired

after a promise of future irrigation projects

Arizona backs down

interstate war is averted

the courts are

the new battlegrounds of the developing west

the huge construction projects of the 1930s

help the west survive the depression

but produce too much electricity

one congressman complained

that there is no one to sell the power to

except the jackrabbits and the rattlesnakes

but change is looming

the west is poised to become the nation's powerhouse

and lifeline

January 6th, 1942

America is a month into a global war

for which it is poorly equipped

with enemies in Europe and across the Pacific

it has only a fraction of

the material it will need to win the war

FDR aware of the monumental military

and manufacturing effort required

reaches out to industry

in his state of the union speech

this production of ours in the United States

must be raised far above present level

even though it will mean the dislocation

of the lives and occupations

of millions of our own people

Americans head west to work in armaments factories

which are now proliferating across the region

for industrialist Henry Kaiser

the war opens up a spigot of new federal spending

the west received $60 billion from Washington

for war projects

with shipbuilding a priority

along the coasts in California

Oregon and Washington Kaiser owns seven shipyards

each one with enough dry docks to launch a ship a day

in November 1942

his yard in Richmond California

wins a competition to build a ship in the shortest time

now Mister Kaiser reviews his latest achievement

the 10,000 ton Robert E

Perry built in four days

15 hours and 29 minutes

a world production record

beyond the dreams of shipbuilding experts

in Portland

in a span of two years

the Kaiser Shipyard turns out over 1,000 Liberty

and victory ships

the expansion of shipyards and ports on the West Coast

stimulates its economy for decades to come

east of San Francisco

in Port Chicago

African American sailors stock ships

destined for the Pacific with live munitions

it's dangerous work

and little attention is paid to their safety

racial discrimination is still rampant

on July 17th, 1944 the SSEA Bryan

loaded with more than 4,500 tons of ammunition explodes

this footage

captures the aftermath of the devastating accident

falling debris lands 2 miles away

I saw the ship disintegral before my eyes

pieces of steel and flame

shot hundreds feet up in the air

next thing I knew

I was flying through the air

lost my rifle and landed in the ditch

more than 300 sailors die instantly

two thirds of them African American

during all of World War 2

it is the deadliest incident on mainland American soil

the practices that caused it

reflect the prevailing racism in the military

hundreds of African Americans strike

until the dangerous working conditions change

50 are court martialed for mutiny

convicted and sentenced to up to 15 years hard labour

in 1946 in an act of clemency

President Harry Truman sets the man free

their stand for racial justice helps push the Navy

to be the first military service to begin desegregation

during the war

unlike African Americans

American Indians served in

the same units with white soldiers

Arizona's Navajo

bring a special skill to the battlefield

like all American Indian tribes

they speak a unique language

one which enemy forces can't understand

commanders realize their potential to provide a perfect

natural code

The Marine Corps trains them in military protocol

and American Indians become code talkers

in the battle for Iwo Jima

six Navajo Code Talkers

send 800 messages in the first 48 hours alone

communications crucial to the capture of the island

in mid 1945

the fate of the war in the Pacific

looks protracted and bloody

but the government hopes that it's top secret

Manhattan Project

with sites sprinkled across the west

can change that

for three years

scientists have been developing

the world's first atomic bomb

in the desert in Washington state

rises a mysterious part of the project

a multi million dollar complex

built by the industrial giant Dupont

they make this rare film

a unique inside into the facility known as Hanford

the site becomes a mini city

which on the surface

has all the trappings of normal American life

but only a handful of its inhabitants

know the facility's true purpose

it transforms uranium

mined in Colorado into a byproduct called plutonium

on July 16th, 1945

it is Hanford's plutonium

that fuels the world's first atomic bomb

tested in New Mexico's remote Alamogordo Desert

the atom bomb soon dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki

end the war in the Pacific

the atomic age is born in the American West

the Utah Arizona border 1946

Oscar winning Hollywood director John Ford

back from filming the war

is ready to reclaim and reinvigorate

the myth of the Old West

in Ford's rare home movies

we see him in Monument Valley his favourite location

in 1939 it was the setting for Stagecoach

his landmark western and John Wayne's big break

now Ford is making My Darling Clementine

the definitive film about wider

starring Henry Fonda as the legendary lawman

the exciting action of reckless pioneer days

the romantic conflicts of men and women

who LED perilous lives

and the breathtaking beauty of scenes

filmed in the magnificence of the great southwest

but Ford's version of the Wild West

survives only in the movies now

while Americans once headed west seeking adventure

they now make the track drawn by comfort and climate

that's what drives the phenomenal growth of Phoenix

Arizona a sprawling city

now one of the biggest in the region

only made possible by Teddy Roosevelt's irrigation

40 years before

during the post war years

it experiences a population boom

quadrupling from 100,000 to over 400,000

in the 1950s

industries take advantage of the growing workforce

and ample space to build

Goodyear which first moved here to make tires

now expands into aviation manufacturing

another fast growing business

springs from a recent invention

air conditioning

which makes life comfortable in a dry

desert region that in the summertime

averages over 100 degrees

it's not just white Americans who live in Phoenix

there are also 16,000 Mexican Americans

including Alfonso Barrios

a Mexican American who was born in California

in the 1930s he moves to Phoenix

meets and marries Dolores and starts a family

his 1950s home movies capture family life

Alfonso served in the war

and films a parade

for a Mexican American veterans association he supports

set up in 1945 to tackle discrimination

against Mexican Americans

a community that in the west is under siege

since 1942 Mexico has been supplying contract labourers

to US agriculture

under an agreement called the Bracero Program

some 200,000 Mexican guest workers

have been migrating legally each year

many arriving by train in border towns such as El Paso

but among them are those with no contract

who cross illegally

people vilified as wetbacks

for waiting across the Rio Grande

now some in the west

believe their problems stem from these immigrants here

in the last few years since the war

the night forces came in

and taken our jobs away from us

and they have lowered our standard of living

illegal migrants are welcomed by some farmers

happy to exploit their cheap labour

in 1954 President Dwight D

Eisenhower decides to get tough

he starts Operation Wetback

in the summer

teams of agents fan out across the west

to launch a dragnet

in the first year alone

over 250,000 migrants are apprehended

and sent back to Mexico

the deportations

add to the strained relations with Mexico

the population of the west is only rising

by 1955 this once remote

and sparsely settle region of frontiersmen and cowboys

is home to 33 million people

dynamic industries have spawned big cities

and the days of outlaws and Indian wars

have receded into the history books

but the image and myth of those times

is firmly fixed in the hearts of Americans

Berry seller Walter Knott

who moved to California's Orange County in 1920

sees a chance to cash in on the Wild West

to draw customers

he installs

old buildings he's picked up from nearby ghost towns

this rare home movie captures Knott's recreation

Knott's Berry Farm draws the curious from miles around

eager to immerse themselves in nostalgia

for the Wild West

and becomes America's first theme park

not adds even more fun by putting in rides

with western themes

this 1968 home movie by theme park designer

Bud Hurlbuck

captures a 61 year old John Wayne

taking the plunge on the newly opened log flume

it's a rare moment of the Old West embracing the new

from the frontier of American expansion

the west has transformed into an economic

and political powerhouse that drives change

not only do they transform America

but they use a new invention

the movie camera to make sure that everyone knows it

provide the winning edge

the story of America

seen in color for the first time

the dawn of the 20th century America is on the rise

now bold pioneers will lead it to even greater heights

with inventions

technologies

and mighty industries

that transform America and the world

but the changes also trigger division

this is the story of America's titans of industry

as you have never seen them before

I thought I could be captain