Roger Standish, Richard Dix, a lowly bank clerk in a prosperous New York City around 1873, is fired after he is caught courting Caroline Ogden, the daughter of the bank's president. The Panic of 1873 devastates the Ogden family, bringing about the elder’s financial collapse and death. Undeterred, Caroline Ogden, Ann Harding, offers to marry Roger and proposes that they travel west in search of new opportunities.
While crossing Nebraska by raft, Roger is shot during a raid by the Slade gang. He is taken to the nearby town of Fort Allen, where the town’s doctor, Dan L. Blake [Guy Kibbee], operates with a blend of steady skill and stubborn resolve, washing his hands and instruments in alcohol to keep them clean. Matilda Blake, [Edna May Oliver], runs the hotel and welcomes Caroline as if she were family. Months later, the same bandits return to attack, and Roger rallies the townspeople, though he is too weak to ride out with them; the posse perseveres and ends up hanging the entire gang.
Caroline is inspired to open a bank in Fort Allen, and with the help of the Blakes, Standish Bank becomes an instant success. On opening day, Caroline gives birth to twins, a boy and a girl, anchoring a new generation of Fort Allen’s story. As the town grows, the threat of the railroad arriving elsewhere casts a shadow over its future prospects. Caroline learns that the railroad’s president was a friend of her father, and she wins him over by offering to share a DelMonico sweetbread recipe from New York, a gesture that embodies her practical charm and resolve.
The opening day of the railroad station is marred by tragedy: their son rides with Doc Blake in a buggy when the first train’s whistle spooks the horses, sending the buggy onto the track. The child is pinned beneath the wreck, and Doc Blake struggles to free him as the train bears down. The braking train kills both the young boy and the man trying to rescue him, leaving the family to mourn while Frances Standish grows into a beautiful young woman and marries Warren Lennox, [Donald Cook].
Prosperity finally gives way to the Depression of the 1890s. Overextended due to poor judgment by their son-in-law, Standish National Bank is forced to close after a run on deposits. Caroline tells Standish they have faced downturns before, and Lennox’s suicide arrives just as her granddaughter Frances and Warren Lennox’s child are born, ushering in a new generation—Roger Standish Lennox. The young boy grows up amid a world of rapid technological change and, after America enters World War I, joins the Lafayette Escadrille, rising to become a decorated fighter pilot.
Watching his grandson’s victory parade after the Armistice, Standish’s patience and pride are tested once more when Caroline collapses and dies. The decades that follow bring continued growth, and Standish Bank, having weathered the hardships of the late 19th century, thrives again under Lennox’s leadership. As the country rides a new wave of ambition, the old man muses that America’s forward march sometimes tests itself, “like a growing boy who busts his britches every once in a while.” When the stock market crash of 1929 ends the era of easy plenty, Lennox asks Standish to sign papers dissolving his $5 million trust fund so that Lennox can invest the money in the bank. As Standish signs, Lennox expresses his faith in the nation’s recovery and future triumph, filling his grandfather with pride in a country that continues to strive forward.
