-
The Growth of New Towns and Cities to Support Cattle, Mining, and Farming Industries
It was very necessary for towns and cities to grow bigger. In order for towns and cities to prosper they need to open up to everything and anything. Cattle, mining, and farming industries were good economically. Which meant that the towns and cities could bring in more money to expand and make them better. -
Extinction of Buffalo
The Buffalo came to near extinction in the mid 1800s. The buffalo was first and foremost the significance to people of the plains and prairies. Moreover, no story of wildlife decline in North America is more widely known than the demise of the buffalo. -
Discoveries of large amounts of gold and silver
Gold was found by James Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The news of gold brought sbout 300,000 people to California from the rest of the United States and abroad. Of the 300,000, approximately half arrived by sea, and half came overland from the east, on the California Trail and the Gila River trail. -
Homestead Act of 1862
This act allowed people to put in a claim for up to 160 free acres of federal land. Anyone who had never taken up arms against the U.S. government, was 21 years or older, or the head of a family could get a claim for land. This ment that people moving west had a place of their own and a place to go when they got to the west. -
Barbed Wire
Many individuals created their own type of barbed wire fence, but it never made the mass market. In 1863, Michael Kelly developed the first type of barbed wire fence. Barbed wire was mainly used to keep animals from escaping, and replaced many wooden fences used. -
Transcontinental Railroad Systems
The transcontinental railroad systems were started in 1863 and completed and ready to use on May 10, 1869. The first transcontinental railroad was built crossing the western half of America, it was 1,776 miles long. The transport of goods was made much faster, cheaper, and more flexible. -
Shift from "Long Drive" to "Cattle Ranching"
The shift from "long drive" to "cattle ranching" was from 1866-1886. About 20 million cattle were herded from Texas to railheads in Kansas. The establishment of "Cow Towns" was developed across the American West. Cattle drives still occur today. -
Jesse Woodsen James
He was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. He became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Jesse and his brother Frank James were Confederate guerrillas, or Bushwhackers, during the Civil War. -
Wild West Shows
Wild West Shows were traveling vaudeville performances in the United States and Europe. The first and prototypical wild west show was Buffalo Bill's, formed in 1883 and lasting until 1913. The shows introduced many western performers and personalities, and a romanticized version of the American Old West, to a wide audience with many different members. Will Rogers also toured a wild west show. -
Dawes Act of 1886
The objectives of this act was to simulate assimilation of Indians into mainstream American society. The act also provided what the government would classify as "excess" Indian reservation lands, and sell those lands on the open market. It's also known as the General Allotment Act.