Transcript Transforming the West - UNITED STATES HISTORY

TRANSFORMING THE WEST
15.3
OBJECTIVES
Analyze the impact of mining and railroads on
the settlement of the West.
 Explain how ranching affected western
development
 Discuss the ways various peoples lived in the
West and their impact on the enviroment

KEY PARTS
Miners Hope to Strike it Rich
 Railroaders Open the West
 Ranchers Build the Cattle Kingdom
 Farmers Settle on Homesteads
 Competition, Conflict, and Change

INTRODUCTION
Read section 15.3
 Answer questions 4-6 on pg. 512

MINERS HOPE TO STRIKE IT RICH
Gold and silver mining caused the first great
boom in the West.
 All of which had similar conditions; gold or silver
was found then a mass movement of people
moved to an area that was ill prepared for large
numbers of people.
 Pikes Peak, Colorado and Carson River valley in
Nevada are classic examples of this.

CONT.
Miners and prospectors had dreams of striking it
rich, but others saw an opportunity to make their
fortune by supplying the needs of miners for food,
clothing, and supplies.
 This large movement of people stemmed various
situations dealing with law.
 To limit violence and administer justice in areas
with out jails and judges miners set up rules and
appointed law enforcers called vigilantes.

CONT..
As towns developed and the mining soil was rich,
towns would hire real marshals and sheriffs like
Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson.
 The problem with many of these communities
was they were “boomtowns;” which just means
they last only as long as the gold and silver.
 Initially mining was done by individuals who
mined in the streambeds in the surface level soil.
 In the 1870s big business owners began to mine
deep underground in mineshafts to extract more
gold. (they would often recruit workers from
China and Mexico)

RAILROADERS OPEN THE WEST
As industry in the West grew the need for a
railroad to transport goods increased as well.
 The transcontinental railroad became a big
theme in the West.
 Unlike Europe whose railroads were owned and
paid for by the government, the United States
wanted private investors to fund the railroad.

CONT.
The United States government did however
provide loans for railroad builders and land
grants to build the railroad on.
 Simultaneously in 1863 the Central Pacific
started laying track eastward from Sacramento
California, while the Union Pacific headed
westward from Omaha Nebraska.
 The construction was very difficult and costly.

CONT..
Central Pacific hired recruits from China and set
them to work under harsh contracts with little
regard for their safety.
 Union Pacific used Irish immigrants in the same
fashion.
 The two tracks finally met at Promontory, Utah
in 1869.
 The United States began to shrink and
settlement intensified.

CONT…
The railroad had far reaching effects. They tied
the nation together geographically, moved
products and people, and spurred industrial
development.
 This caused business owners to move to where
the railroads where and develop, because they
could produce a product and almost immediately
ship it wherever it needed to go.

RANCHERS BUILD THE CATTLE KINGDOM
The second major boom in the West was cattle
ranching.
 Texas had already been raising massive amounts
of livestock before and eastern settlers moved in.
 They used an open range system that allowed
their cattle to free graze. There were no fences,
they identified their cattle by branding. (steel
mold that would be heated and pressed into the
hide of the cow to cause scaring)

CONT.
The cows would roam for food in the winter and
in the spring cowboys would comb the thousands
of acres to round up their livestock.
 Once rounded up the cowboys began a massive
cattle drive to take the cows up north to the
railroad for transport.
 The trek would sometimes take months to reach
Montana or Colorado.

CONT..
Cowboy’s work was dangerous, difficult, low
paying.
 Cattle drives often concluded in railway towns
such as Dodge City, Kansas. This is where the
infamous Doc Holliday, Jesse James and Wild
Bill Hickok came to life.
 Open range ranching flourished for a decade, by
the mid 1880s it came to an end.

FARMERS SETTLE ON HOMESTEADS
Droughts and harsh winters ended the open
range ranching, farmer began to fence in their
land and plant hay for their cattle to feed on.
 In 1862 the government passed the Homestead
act; which offered farm plots of 160 acres to
anyone willing to live on the land for five years,
dig a well, and build a road.
 Life was hard for these people who lived in the
plains, they were plagued with windstorms,
blizzards, droughts, and locusts.

CONT.
Most of these settlers couldn’t afford wood for
housing in this treeless area. So they cut 3 foot
sections of sod and stacked them like brick to
make homes.
 Life was bleak for these people until the
invention of the windmill, plow, and barbed wire.
 Congress passed the Morrill Act in 1862 which
granted land to the states for the purpose of
establishing agricultural colleges.

COMPETITION CONFLICT AND CHANGE
Conflicts between miners, ranchers,
sheepherders, and farmers led to violence and
acts of sabotage.
 Grazing cattle ruined farmers crops, and sheep
gnawed grass so close to the ground that cattle
could not graze, and miners ruined the water
with their mining pollution.

CONT.
The West had the widest diversity of people in
the nation.
 With 20% of the nations total population, it was
home to more than 80% of the nation’s Asian,
Mexican, and Native American residents.
 Ethnic tensions began to rise with the diversity
of the people.

CONT..
The last major land rush took place in1889 when
the federal government opened the Oklahoma
Territory to homesteaders.
 On April 22, 1889 the “boomers” were released to
stake their claim but the found that much of the
best land had already been taken by “sooners”
who had sneaked in to the territory and staked
their claims before the official opening.

CONT…
The next year in 1890 a national census was
taken and concluded that there was no longer a
square mile of the United States that did not
have at least a few white residents.
 The report said “The country no longer had a
frontier.”
