A romantic period of American history that still intrigues us ended, semiofficially, on this date in 1893. That’s when historian Frederick Jackson Turner delivered an academic paper in Chicago declaring the American Frontier had closed. Based on 1890 Census data, Turner said that migration from the East, the building of railroads and hundreds of new towns had combined to forge a single nation from coast-to-coast. The most recent census showed that the West is still a magnet for growth. Between 2000 and 2010, Nevada was the fastest growing state at 35 percent. Other states that grew more than 20 percent were Utah, Texas, Idaho, and Arizona. Only Michigan lost population. The nation as a whole grew 9.7 percent. Profile America is in its 17th year as a public service of the U.S. Census Bureau.