As the young publisher of the Frontier Index, Legh Richmon Freeman so frequently moved the printing equipment he and his brother operated in the railroad construction towns of Nebraska and Wyoming between 1865 and 1868 that their newspaper earned the permanent sobriquet of the "Press on Wheels." The term continued to be a fitting description beyond the pioneer period up to Freeman's death in 1915 on the Pacific coast, where he published the Washington Farmer. Freeman's activities have been deemed significant by journalism historians: in 1916, James Melvin Lee called the Frontier Index among the most interesting newspapers in the history of American journalism; in 1943, Douglas C. McMurtrie added that he had seen no more fascinating story in all the annals of American journalism.

During his years on the railroad frontier, Freeman wrote as General Horaito Vattel, "Lightning Scout of the Mountains," a nom de plume rooted in his belief in the...