Miners and Ranchers

Westward Movement The growing industrial economy in the east needed the deposits of gold, silver, and copper found in the west. Many settlers migrated to the western U. S. hoping to become rich by finding these precious metals.

Types of Mining In placer mining prospectors used simple equipment like picks, pans, and shovels to mine the shallow deposits of ore by hand. Corporations dug deep beneath the surface to mine deposits of ore in a process known an quartz mining.

The Comstock Lode In 1859 prospector Henry Comstock staked a claim for a silver mine in Six-Mile Canyon, Nevada. This caused Virginia City, Nevada, to go from an outpost to a boom-town almost overnight. Several years later, the mines ran out of silver and the boomtown became a ghost town. The cycle of boom and bust was repeated through out the West.

Westward Movement Mining helped the growth of Colorado, the Dakota Territory, and Montana. Mining in Colorado spurred the building of railroads through the Rocky Mountains.

Cattle Ranching After the Civil War many Americans on the Great Plains turned to cattle ranching. The Texas longhorn was a breed of cattle brought from Mexico that could withstand the harsh conditions of the Plains.

Cattle Ranching The cattle ranching industry grew in part because of the open range—vast areas of grasslands owned by the federal government. Cattle raisers could graze their herds free of charge and without boundaries.

Long Drives The first long drive in 1866 across the Great Plains to the railroad in Sedalia, Missouri, proved that cattle could be driven north to the rail lines and sold for 10 times the price they could get in Texas. The long cattle drives ended, in part, when the open range was largely fenced off with barbed wire.