Westward Ho
Manifest Destiny
Following the Civil War, many
Americans loaded all of their
possessions into their wagons and
headed West. Why were people so
willing to head into the unknown?
Homestead Act 1862
• The new law established a three-fold homestead
acquisition process:
1. Filing an application: Any U.S. citizen, or intended
citizen, who had never borne arms against the U.S.
Government could file an application and lay claim to
160 acres of surveyed Government land.
2. Improving the land: For the next 5 years, the
homesteader had to live on the land and improve it by
building a 12-by-14 dwelling and growing crops.
3. Filing for deed of title: After 5 years, the homesteader
could file for his patent (or deed of title) by submitting
proof of residency and the required improvements to
a local land office.
• After the Civil War, Union soldiers could deduct the
time they served from the residency requirements.
Morrill Land-Grant Act 1862
To encourage the building of "land-grant" colleges in
Western territories that had already been granted
statehood, hundreds of thousands of acres of land
were given to state governments. This land could be
sold by the states to pay for these colleges. At 50
cents an acre (and sometimes less), settlers and land
speculators received land from individual states.
F.Y.I. Michigan State & Pennsylvania State Universities
were the first land grant universities in the country.
(1863)
Railroads
• In acts of 1862 and 1864, the Union Pacific and
Central Pacific Railroads received grants of land to
extend their rail lines westward. Part of the
legislation also gave the railroads 10 square miles
on both sides of the track for every mile of track
constructed. This land was sometimes sold to
settlers as well, sometimes at exorbitant prices.
Who made up these rugged
individuals willing to start
anew?
They were…….
• Miners
• Cattlemen and cowboys
• Farmers
What supplies would settlers
need?
What dangers would they face
during their journey?
• 1848 California
(Gold)
• 1859 Pike’s
Peak, CO
(Gold)
• 1859 Comstock
Lode in NV,
$340m
produced (G,
Silver)
Individual Miners
• Individual miners
used the placer
method. (see picture)
• Shovels and washing
pans were used by
prospectors
Hollywood Tin Pans
• Pale Rider
–Nugget Found
–Spider’s Find
Hydraulic Mining
Hollywood goes hydraulic
• Pale Rider
–Hydraulic Mining
Deep Shaft Mining
Impact of Mining
• Rich strikes created
instant “boom towns”
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Saloons
Dance Hall Girls
Hardware store
Bath House
Vigilante Justice
• Many towns became
ghost towns within years
when gold or silver ran
out
• Surviving towns became
large cities with all sorts
of amenities
• Mining Companies
– Employed experienced workers
from: Europe, Latin America
and China
– Common for a town to be ½
foreign born
– 1860 saw 1/3 of miners from
China
• CA placed a $20 / month tax on
foreign workers
• Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882
• Environmental Scars
• Pushed native populations
off their land
Famous Mining Towns Deadwood, SD 1876
Famous Mining Towns Deadwood, SD late 1880’s
Differences
Deadwood, SD: 1876
Deadwood, SD: Late 1880’s
Cattlemen &
Cowboys
Look closely at this picture. What do
you notice?
Cattlemen and Cowboys
• 1860, some 5 million
longhorn cattle grazed in
the Lone Star state.
• Cattle that could be bought
for $3 to $5 a head in Texas
could be sold for $30 to $50
at railroad shipping points in
Abilene or Dodge City in
Kansas. (known as cow
towns)
• Cowboys had to drive their
cattle a thousand miles
northward to reach the
Kansas railheads.
• Cowboys:
Cattle Drives
– Clothing and traditions
Usually 3 months in duration
taken from early
Spanish Vaueros
– Consisted of men from
many races
• Key Elements
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Trail Boss $100/month
CB (9) $30/month
Cook $50/month
60 horses
3,000 lonhorns
Extras for drive $300
• Net profit: $30,000 $100,00
Cow Towns
At the end of the trail,
sometimes four months
and 1,200 miles later.
• Cow towns had saloons
filled with music,
whiskey, gambling and
prostitutes
Dodge City
“the Wickedest little city in America”
• Founded in 1872
• Served primarily as a
civilian community to
nearby Fort Dodge.
• Business also centered on
the sale of buffalo hides
and bones before the
cattle trade era began in
1875.
• 1875-1885
– Principal Kansas cow town
– more than 75,000 head of
cattle were shipped annually
• Boasted of three dance
halls for a brief time but for
most of its ten years as a
cattle town, there were
only two.
• city earned income by
levying taxes on liquor,
gambling, and prostitution.
Dodge City was established in 1872, just before the arrival of the Santa
Fe Railroad. It initially did a booming business in buffalo bones and
hides, as well as serving as a rendezvous for soldiers from Fort Dodge.
By 1875 its days as a cattle town had arrived and for the next 10 years it
was the "Cowboy Capital" of the world, and "Queen of the Cow towns."
Original caption: 1878-Dodge City, KS: Approximately 40,000 buffalo
hides piled up in Rath and Wright's Buffalo Hide Yard, Dodge City,
Kansas.
End of an Era
• Long cattle drives began to end in the late 1880’s
– Overgrazing of the grass
– Winter blizzard and drought 0f 1885-1886 killed 90% of
the cattle
– Arrival of homesteaders
• Barbed wire fencing (access to open range)
– Large ranches created
• More tender breeds were raised
• Hay and grains used as feed
• The Wild West was largely tamed by the 1890s
• Buffalo
Hollywood Goes Western
– Dances with Wolves
• Frontier Impressions
• Buffalo left in waste
– Wyatt Earp
• Skinners
• Cowboys
– City Slickers
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•
•
•
•
Arriving at the ranch
Roping Practice
Start of the drive (Yee Ha Scene)
Calf berthing
Storm/Bringing home the herd
Farmers
• Homestead Act 1862
– 500K took advantage
– 2.5M had to purchase
land
• Best land taken by
R/R companies and
speculators
• Large migration of settlers
to Great Plains between
1870 and 1900
Great Plains
• Geography
– Dry, treeless, tall grasses
– Extremes of hot and cold weather
– Scarcity of water
• Sodbusters
– Homes built of sod bricks
– Faced the elements
• Plagues of grasshoppers
– Barbed wire allowed farmers to fence off their land
– Mail order wind-mills
Sod Home
Chrisman Sisters
Nebraska 1886
Great Plains
• 2/3 of Great Plains “Homesteaders’” farms failed by
1900.
– Severe weather
– Falling prices for crops
– Cost of new machinery
Great Plains
• The 1/3 that managed to stay adopted new farming
methods:
– Dry farming
– Deep plowing
– Russian Wheat
– Dams and irrigation provided needed water
Agricultural Inventors/Inventions
Cyrus McCormick
1.
In 1831, twenty-two-year-old
Cyrus McCormick took over
his father's project of
designing a mechanical
reaper. Working on his
family's Virginia farm,
McCormick implemented
features of the machine that
remain in use today: a
divider, a reel, a straight
reciprocating knife, a finger, a
platform to catch the cut
stalks, a main wheel and
gearing, and a draft traction
on the front. In 1834, in the
face of competition from
other inventors, McCormick
took out a patent and soon
after, began manufacturing
the reaper himself.
2. The mechanical reaper was an
important step in the
mechanization of agriculture
during the nineteenth century.
Before the reaper, the amount of
grain that could be cut by hand
during the short harvest season
limited both food supply and
farm sizes. McCormick's reaper
would win international acclaim
at the first world's fair in
London's Crystal Palace, in 1851.
John Deere
1. Deere's story is an American
success story, just like that of Cyrus
McCormick. (Do you remember what
McCormick invented?) At eleven
years of age, John Deere was an
apprentice blacksmith making
smoothly polished hay forks and
shovels. By 1836, when Deere was
twenty-six, he traveled from his
home in Vermont by canal boat, lake
boat, and stagecoach to Grand
Detour, Illinois, where he set up
another blacksmith shop. There he
discovered that farmers were using
cast iron plows that clogged with
mud every few minutes. John Deere
pondered the problem, and soon
produced shiny steel plows that
made nicely molded furrows.
2. Not only did Deere provide
plows on special order, but he
also began mass-producing them
in advance of orders. Ten years
after he sold his first steel plow,
John Deere was filling orders for a
thousand plows a year.
3. Deere's plows were high
quality. In fact, he often said, "I
will never put my name on a plow
that does not have in it the best
that is in me."