The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants on the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840–60 is a 1979 history book by John D. Unruh, Jr., first published by the University of Illinois Press, about on overland travel across the Great Plains prior to the Civil War.[1] It was a finalist for the 1980 Pulitzer Prize for History.[2]
The book was a revised doctoral dissertation written at the University of Kansas under George L. Anderson and Clifford S. Griffin. It covers mainly the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails.