The Great American Desert was an inaccurate term that described the area west of the Missouri River and east of the Rocky Mountains in the 19th century. The Missouri River is a tributary of the Mississippi River in the United States. ... White Goat Wilderness Area, Alberta, Canada The Rocky Mountains, often called the Rockies, are a broad mountain range in western North America. ...

This area is actually mostly semi-arid grassland and is now extensively cultivated for agriculture. But in the 19th century, the area was relatively unexplored and the belief was that the area was almost uninhabitable. When the region was purchased by the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, President Jefferson wrote of the "immense and trackless deserts" of the region. In 1823, Stephen Long, a government surveyor, produced a map labelling the area the Great American Desert and the name persisted. Even people with direct experience of the region who were able to observe the area was not a desert assumed the contradictory conditions they saw were temporary or localized. An Inner Mongolian Grassland. ... From Frank Bond, Louisiana and the Louisiana Purchase. ... 1803 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 N.S. – July 4, 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and one of the most influential Founders of the United States. ... 1823 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... Stephen Harriman Long (1784 - 1864) was a U.S. army officer and explorer. ...

Belief in the existence of the desert affected the development of the United States. Settlers heading westward often attempted to pass through the region as quickly as possible en route to what was regarded as better land farther west. The area was also considered as a useful region for the resettlement of American Indians who were being forcibly removed from the eastern United States. Railroad interests seeking right of ways through the region also benefited from the belief that the land was commercially valueless. An Atsina named Assiniboin Boy Native Americans in the United States (also known as Indians, American Indians, First Americans, Indigenous Peoples, Aboriginal Peoples, Aboriginal Americans, Amerindians, Amerinds, or Original Americans) are the indigenous peoples within the territory that is now encompassed by the continental United States and their descendants in... This is the top-level page of WikiProject trains Rail tracks Rail transport refers to the land transport of passengers and goods along railways or railroads. ...

By the mid-19th century, people had begun settling in the region despite its poor reputation. The local inhabitants came to realize the area was in fact well suited for farming, due in part to the fact that large portions of the region sit atop one of the world's largest underground reservoirs, the Ogallala Aquifer. Experts of the era proposed theories that maintained the earlier reports had been accurate and the climate had changed. Some even credited the settlers themselves as having caused the change by planting crops and trees. The slogan "rain follows the plough" was created to describe this belief. The Ogallala aquifer underlies portions of eight states. ...

The area once called Great American Desert is now more accurately named the Great Plains. The original term is now sometimes used to describe the arid region of the Southwest, which includes parts of northern Mexico and the four deserts of North America. The Great Plains is the broad expanse of prairie which lies east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States of America and Canada, covering all or parts of the U.S. states of New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota and North Dakota and the... The Southwestern United States or simply the Southwest is a region of the United States that is drier in weather than the adjoining Southern United States and Western United States; the population is less dense and, with moderate Mexican and American Indian components, more ethnically varied than neighboring areas. ... This is a list of North American deserts. ...