the.com/frontier town
a place invented faster than it could be governed.
means a settlement built at the edge of established civilization, where law, infrastructure, and permanence all arrive late.
from the term rode in with american westward expansion, when railheads and gold strikes spawned towns overnight, often before anyone bothered naming the streets or electing a sheriff.
boomtown speeddeadwood grew from zero to 5,000 in one year
lifespanmany frontier towns died within a decade of founding
law lagtombstone had no official marshal for its first two years
economybuilt entirely on one resource: gold, cattle, or rail