In 1939, Lavender moved to
Ojai, California, where he took a teaching job. He sold three short stories to
The Saturday Evening Post and went on to contribute to other publications. In 1954, Lavender published ''Bent's Fort'', an historic landmark of the American West on the upper Arkansas River in present-day southeastern Colorado. Built by Charles and William Bent,
Bent's Fort was a massive private fort that stood until 1849 as the center of trade with the Indians of the central plains. Lavender's history of these men and their role in opening up the southwestern region of North America has been compared to the works of eminent historians such as
Francis Parkman and
William H. Prescott. In 1958, Lavender wrote
The Trail to Santa Fe, about
Zebulon Pike and his exploration of the American Southwest in present-day
Missouri,
Kansas,
Colorado, and
New Mexico. The book captures the turbulent adventures of the explorers, traders, and fighters who opened up this new country, and the hardships they faced during their westward expansion into uncharted land along the
Santa Fe Trail, which ran from
Independence, Missouri, to
Santa Fe. During the 1960s and 1970s, Lavender wrote a series of histories of the American West, including
Red Mountain in 1963,
Westward Vision: The Story of the Oregon Trail in 1963,
The Rockies in 1968 (Harper & Row), and
The American West in 1969. In the 1980s, Lavender expanded his focus as an historian, writing about the Pacific Northwest in
Fort Vancouver (1981), Wyoming in
Fort Laramie (1984), Utah and Arizona in
Colorado River Country (1982) and
River Runners of the Grand Canyon (1985), California in
California: A Place, a People, a Dream (1986) and
California: Land of New Beginnings (1987), and Colorado in
The Telluride Story (1987). He also produced general histories of the American West in
Overland Migrations (1981),
Colorado River Country (1982),
The Great West (1985),
The Way to the Western Sea (1988), and the
American Heritage History of the West (1988). In 1992, Lavender published
Let Me Be Free: The Nez Percé Tragedy (1992), the tragic story of the Nez Percé Indians' flight from their homeland to Canada to escape the United States cavalry. The clash between European-Americans and the American Indians was a subject Lavender covered in many of his previous works. In the last decade of his life, Lavender focused his writing on the American Southwest. His books
De Soto, Coronado, Cabrillo: Explorers of the Northern Mystery (1992),
The Santa Fe Trail (1995),
Pipe Spring and the Arizona Strip (1997),
Mother Earth, Father Sky: Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest (1998), and
Climax at Buena Vista: The Decisive Battle of the Mexican-American War (2003) all contributed to documenting the history of the region. == Honors and awards ==