---
title: Improvement Era
description: Monthly periodical of the Mormon church, 1897 onward. This library holds the issues of November 1897 to December 1930.
authors:
  - Lambourne, Alfred
collections:
  - periodicals
tags:
  - magazine
  - improvement-era
periodical: Improvement Era
volume: 13
number: 5
published: 1910-03
publisher: Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations
publisher_place: Salt Lake City
language: en
type: magazine
reference: 'Lambourne, Alfred, "Sketches and Extracts from “The Old Journey”," *Improvement Era* 13, no. 5 (March 1910): 392–393.'
source:
  url: https://archive.org/details/improvementera135unse
  transcription: Transcribed from the Internet Archive scan of each issue (the item for each issue is named in the issue's own source); unnumbered advertising leaves are omitted, printed page numbers are kept as page markers.
  identifier: improvementera135unse
start_page: 392
end_page: 393
rights:
  status: public-domain
  basis: US publication 1930 or earlier (published 1910-03)
  source: https://archive.org/details/improvementera135unse
  publication_year: 1910
  note: The Internet Archive item metadata carries a blanket "© Copyright by Intellectual Reserve, Inc." notice. The library owner judged it inapplicable because this issue was published in 1910, before 1931; a scan-level notice does not restore copyright.
---

# Sketches and Extracts from “The Old Journey”


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SKETCHES AND EXTRACTS
JSy Alfred
How rapidly we have grown! What used to be dreams of the
future first changed to reality, and then sank away until they are
but a dream of the past !  No more the long trains of dust-covered
wagons, drawn by the slow and patient oxen, wind across the
level plains or through the deep defile.     No more the Pony Ex-
press or the lumbering stage coach brings the quickest word or
forms the fastest transport between the inter-mountain region and
"The States." How hard it is to understand the briefness of time
that has passed since this great interior country was practically a
howling wilderness, inhabited by bands of savage Indians, and
penetrated only by intrepid trappers or hunters!    Before us was
the land of Kit Carson; of the Sioux, the Cheyenne and the Ute. In

<!-- page:393 -->

FROM "THE OLD JOURNEY."
Lambourne.
our path was the home of the prairie dog, the coyote, and the
rattlesnake; of the antelope, the buffalo and the bear.
Day after day we trudged along, day after day the prairie un-
rolled before, or, day after day the red hills of sandstone looked
down upon us. The days grew into weeks, the weeks into months,
and still the cattle, freed from the yoke, hastened to slake their
thirst in the passing streams.
Now we behold a land giving promise of future greatness, where
peace, wealth and happiness shall go hand in hand, and where al-
ready it is well-nigh impossible for the youth of today to compre-
hend the struggles and privations of their Pioneer Fathers.