1. The West

2. Three “Frontiers”
Cattle
Farming
Mining

3. The Cattle Frontier

4. Cattle Industry Longhorn Cattle
First brought to America by the Spaniards, along with horses
Those that escaped thrived on the southern plains

5. Prior to the Civil War, cattle ranching was limited
Ranchers sold hide and meat to local markets
1849 – some ranchers drive cattle to market in California to collect $25-$125/head
1854 – cattle driven to Muncie, Indiana and then shipped by rail to NYC. Stampede on 3rd Avenue!
Post Civil War – demand for beef grows, esp in cities
How to get cattle to market?

6. Joseph McCoy
Creates first stockyards in Abilene, KS
: 4 million steer driven north by hired hands (1/4 black; 1/10 Mexican)
Beef Barons: Swift, Armour industrialize
meat packing.

7. Demise of the Cattle Drive’
Population of west grows; farmers and ranchers don’t want herds trampling over their land.
Barbed wire – Joseph Glidden.
Invented in 1874 – 10,000 lbs sold.
By 1878 – 27 million lbs sold
Great Freeze Up of 1887
Temps below -68 F
Overgrazing and drought
Cattle breeding/ranching

8. The Farming Frontier

9. Farming Expands West Homestead Act 1862 Railroads –
160 acres per settler free IF
A settler can live on and improve land for 5 years
Pays $30
Also authorizes the immediate sale of land a low cost ($1.25/acre)
Purpose: rapid settlement; not $ is the goal.
500,000 families move west under the HA
Railroads –
Railroad boom
Railroads given land grants to pay cost. Land then sold to settlers, many are immigrants.
Transcontinental RR completed in 1869 – Union Pacific and Central Pacific.
Oklahoma Land Rush 1889
2 million acres given away in 24 hrs.
“boomers” and “sooners”

10. Factors encouraging settlement
Cheap, accessible land
Railroads
New railroads help bring settlers out and send crops to eastern markets
RRs given land by gov’t as payment; sell land to immigrants
Technologies
Steel plow
Dry farming techniques
west of 100th meridian, rainfall drops from 20-30in/yr to 10-20in/yr
Drought resistant crops (Russian wheat, etc) used
Windmills pump water up from wells
Barbed wire
McCormick’s Harvester-Thresher
Can cut and thresh wheat in one pass
1830: takes 180 minutes to produce a bushel of grain; by 1900: 10 min
Seed drill
High prices.
Wheat and corn prices up due to crop failures in Europe in the 1860s and Civil War in America

12. A dugout (above) and a soddy (below)
Life in the West
Hardships
Lonely existence
Difficult conditions: heat, wind, dust, insects, rattlesnakes, drought, and harsh winters.
Locusts
Lack of water and trees
Adaptations
Dugouts and Soddies
Locusts used as a food source
Buffalo chips (dung) used as fuel
A dugout (above) and a soddy (below)

13. The Cycle of Debt Bonanza Farms Railroads
High prices for crops encourage investment.
Farmers get loans to purchase machinery to produce more.
Drops in the prices in the 1870s make it hard for farmers to repay loans.
Bonanza Farms
Huge farms run by corporations and investors
Some had 10,000+ acres in cultivation
Many fold because of droughts in the 1880s/90s.
Railroads
Farmers grow upset at railroad rates that charge western farmers more then eastern farmers, and sometimes charge more for hauling items short distances than they do long distances.

14. The Mining Frontier