The Gilded Age
The Trans-Mississippi West
The Closing of the Frontier
“Up to and including 1890 the country had a frontier
of settlement, but at present the unsettled area has
been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement
that there can hardly be said to be frontier line. In the
discussion of its extent, its westward movement etc.,
it can not, therefore, any longer have a place in the
census reports.” – U.S. Census Bureau report (1890)
Manifest Destiny
Other people “must give way to our manifest destiny to overspread
and possess the whole of the continent which providence has given us
for the development the great experiment in liberty.”
– John L. O’Sullivan (1845)
The Trans-Mississippi
Buried Treasures
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1849 – gold - Ca
1859 - gold - Pikes Peak
1859 - silver - Nevada (Comstock Lode)
1862 - gold, silver, copper - Prescott, AZ
1870 - gold - Caribou Mtn, ID; Lordsburg, AZ
1872 - gold, copper, lead - Eureka, NV
1873 - gold, silver - Silverton & Leadville, CO; Globe, AZ
1874 - gold - Black Hills, SD
1875 - silver & copper - Butte, MT
1875 - gold & silver – Ouray, CO; Bonanza, ID
1878 - gold & silver - Cripple Creak, CO
1879 - gold, silver, - Tombstone, AZ
1882 - gold - Couer d’Alene, ID
1896 – gold – Yukon Territory, Alaska
Hard-Rock Miners
Cattle Driving
Homestead Act of 1862
 Could settle 160 acres
 Pay small fee
 Granted full title after 5 years continuous farming
 Could also buy land outright for reasonable price
($1.25/acre)
Plowing the Prairie
Caterpillar - 1904
John Deere Plow – 1890
Tractor pulling plow - 1910
Growth in Agriculture
 Wheat production
 1867 = 211,000,000 bushels
 1900 = 599,000,000 bushels
 Productivity improvements
 1840: 35 hrs labor to produce 15 bushels wheat
 1900: 15 hrs to produce the same amount
 Wheat exports
 1867 = 6,000,000 bushels
 1900 = 102,000,000 bushels
Life on the Prairie
It was hell on women and horses.
Railroads: Agents of Expansion
 In the East, railroads had followed existing patterns of
population
 In the West, railroads preceded settlement
 Needed to bring in settlers (customers)
 Conducted massive advertising campaigns aimed at
easterners & Europeans
 >2,000,000 Europeans settled in Great Plains (1870-1900)
 Most of native-born settlers came from states bordering
Mississippi River
 Gave railroads great economic and political power
Attracting Population
“The poor should come to Colorado, because here
they can by industry and frugality better their
condition. The rich should come here because they
can more advantageously invest their means than in
any other region. The young should come here to get
an early start on the road to wealth.”
- Colorado immigration ad
Attracting Population
Exodusters heading West