1. Moving West

2. Settlement of the Last Frontier
Great Plains, Rocky Mts, and Great Basin still not settled
Push and Pull Factors- mostly pull
Discovery of Precious Metals
Completion of the Trans-Continental Railroad
Availability of cheap land
Homestead Act of 1862
Great plains- rolling treeless plans from texas to North Dakota, little rainfall, buffalo and Indians- Great American desert
Precious metals- California gold rush, gold and silver in Colorado, Nevada, south Dakota, Arizona, - Natives,
Railroad- laborers mainly Irish immigrants and Chinese, after the war freedmen joined, easier for settlers to move west, supplies from the east,
Availability of cheap land- slaughter of buffalo and removal of natives, homestead act of acres for 1.65 an acre after improving it for 6 months, or for free if famred for 5 years, railroads sold their land as well
Oklahoma – used to be indian territory, 2 million acres, april 12, ,000 eager settlers waited along the border of the territory for Americas forst land run

3. Stages of the American West
Native Land
The Mining Boom
Open Range Cattle Kingdom
Farming Frontier
Mining boom- boom town, then ghost town, mostly men, systems of law scarce- vigilantes
after ghost towns, big businesses with heavy machinery
Open range- wild longhorn cattle grazing on plains, Texans decide to drive them to Kansas to sell. 3 months to drive cattle from plains to Kansas (long drive)
cowboys- 1 in 5 was black, lonely isolated lives,
by overgraving had destroyed grass
sheepherders and farmers had bought up the land, and used barbed wire to enclose their land
severe winters and drought led the ranchers to buy their own land and enclose their cattle and supplement their food- closd range system
Farming- RR made it profitable to be a farmer in the west, homestead act, some immigrants but also children of farmers in the Midwest
didn’t like cattleman or Indians, Indians defeated by government, faced many obstacles

4. Farming Frontier Obstacle- remoteness of Markets
Solution- RRs
Obstacle- lack of wood, clay or rock for homes
Solution- Sod-Houses
Obstacle- Lack of wood for fencing
Solution- invention of Barbed Wire
Obstacle- Lack of Rainfall
Solution- dug wells hundreds of feet deep- Windmills powered pumps

5. Farming Frontier (cont’d)
Obstacle- Tough, dry soil
Solution- steel or iron plows – “dry farming”
Obstacle- lack of fuel
Buffalo chips
Obstacle- lack of manpower
Machinery from industrial revolution