Big Ideas
• Moving to new places changes the
people, land, and culture of the new
place as well as the place they left.
• Technology has many different types
of consequences, depending on how
people use that technology.
• Conflict causes change.
Georgia Performance
Standards
• SS5H3: The student will describe how life changed
in America at the turn of the century.
• Describe the role of the cattle trails in the late 19th century;
include the Black Cowboys of Texas, the Great Western Cattle
Trail, and the Chisholm Trail.
•
Describe the impact on American life of the Wright Brothers
(flight), George Washington Carver (science), Alexander Graham
Bell (communication), and Thomas Edison (electricity).
• Explain how William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt
expanded America’s role in the world; include the Spanish
American War and the building of the Panama Canal.
• Describe the reason people emigrated to the United States,
from where they emigrated, and where they settled.
Physical Features of the
West
• As the country became “smaller”, people traveled
west and came upon numerous physical features of
the United States which were new and exciting.
Let’s embark on a scavenger hunt to try and
locate some of these physical features.!
1. The Grand Canyon
2. The Salton Sea
3. The Great Salt Lake
4. The Mojave Desert
The Cattle Drives
• In the 1860’s cattle was so abundant in Texas that
one cow would sell for only $___.00.
• This same cattle could be sold in the Northern and
Eastern United States for about $40.00 a piece.
This is called:
______________________
So what would you have done if you were a Texas cattle rancher?
The only problem was…
…the railroads did not cross into Texas. The closest ___________
(a town where railroad tracks begin or end) were hundreds of
miles away.
The Cattle Drives
• The solution was…
…to “drive” the cattle to places like Abilene, Kansas so they
could be put on trains and shipped to stockyards in the
northern and eastern part of the United States.
The most popular trail was
the _____________________,
which started in San
Antonio, Texas and ended
in Kansas.
Another popular trail was
the _____________________,
which start in Bandera,
Texas and ended in Ogallala,
Nebraska.
http://www.bcr.org/cdp/exhibits/westerntrails/cattle/index.html
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0500/stories/0502_0100.htm
l
http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/program/episodes/five/cowboys.htm
The Chisholm Trail
• In 1867, Joseph G McCoy established a
cattle-shipping terminal in Abilene,
Kansas.
– He knew that $2.00 Longhorns in Texas
were worth almost 10 times as much in
the North,
– He was the 1st to exploit the expanding
railroads to move the cattle to distant
markets.
* Did you know a dollar in 1860 was worth the
equivalent of around $26.00 in today’s economy?
So what does McCoy have to do with
the Chisholm Trail?
• In order to reach McCoy’s shipping yard
cattle drivers used Jesse Chisholm’s trail
which extended from Wichita, Kansas across
the Indian Territory (now known as
Oklahoma) to the Red River.
• Millions of Longhorn cattle travelled along
the Chisholm Trail in only a few short years
Major Cattle Trails and Railroads
Various Names for the Chisholm Trail
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Abilene Trail
The Cattle Trail
The Eastern Trail
The Great Texas Cattle Trail
The Kansas Trail
McCoy’s Trail
_____ of an Era for the Chisholm Trail
• By the late 1880’s, driving cattle north from
Texas was no longer_____________ and
declined rapidly.
• Almost as quickly as the route to Abilene was
established, the era of open-range
cattle driving came to a close.
Oh, the Many Reasons
• Reliance on the Chisholm Trail began to decline
in the 1870’s for a number of reasons.
– The construction of new rail lines to Texas
– The development of ______________and the
establishment of homestead laws that closed off the
open range
– A public demand for better grades of beef
– An oversupply of Longhorns which overran the
market
– Texas fever quarantines in Kansas and
Missouri
The Great Western Cattle Trail
• Another famous cattle trail used in the
1800’s for movement of cattle to markets in
the East.
• Ran west and roughly _____________ to the
Chisholm Trail.
Cattle Trails and Railroads
Began at Bandera, Texas and ended in
Dodge City, Kansas
Also Known As:
• The Western Trail
• The Dodge City Trail
• The Old Texas Trail
Sweet Beginnings
• In 1874 Captain John T. Lytle and several
cowboys set out with 3,500 head of Longhorn
cattle to take advantage of the North’s
desire for beef.
• The trail they blazed would become
known as the Great Western Cattle
Trail.
If This Trail Could Talk
• Over 7 million cattle and horses passed
through Texas and Oklahoma to the railheads
in Kansas and Nebraska.
• The Great Western Cattle Trail is responsible
for developing the __________________
industry as far
north as Wyoming and Montana.
Life on the Trail
• A typical head would move 10-12 miles a day
and included the trail boss, a wrangler, and a
cook.
• The drive from South Texas to Kansas took
about 2 months at a cost of $1000 in wages
and provisions.
• At the end of the trail, cattle sold for
$_________ to $35.00 per head.
Life on the Drives
• What was life like for the cowhands who worked on
these cattle drives?
http://www.cartermuseum.org/collections/smith/
The End of The Cattle Drives
• The cattle drives only lasted for about _______
years.
1. The Homesteaders of the Great Plains
What do you
think were
some causes
for the end of
this important
era for the
West?
region were getting upset that the cattle
were trampling their new land and their
crops.
a)
to keep the cattle drives off of their
land they put up fences with
________________________________
2. The railroads began to grow. Railroads
were built in Texas in the 1870’s, ending
the need for cattle drives to northern
railheads.
3. Many cattle died during the abnormally
cold winter of 1886-1887.
Black Cowboys
• Many African –Americans had just found freedom from slavery due to
the 13th Amendment. For African Americans, the Old West represented
a new home, a new beginning, and a new opportunity to enjoy freedom,
which they so desperately wanted.
Nat Love
Bill Picket
http://www.blackcowboys.com/blackcowboys.htm
Black Cowboys of Texas
• 1/3 of cowboys were either Mexican or
African American.
Websites
• http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/
Resources
•
http://www.sonofthesouth.net/texas/westward-expansion-map.htm
•
http://www.ncgold.com/goldrushtown/photoalbum/early_photography_people/01people.jpg
•
http://images.google.com