1. Unit One: The Wild West Home on the Range

2. The Farmer’s Advance The last wave of settlers into the Great Plains were the farmers. Due to the increased mileage of railroad tracks into the Great Plans from the Transcontinental Railroad and its subsidiary (secondary) tracks in conjunction with massive land sales people began to move into the Great Plains in massive numbers. Life for these settlers was not easy, extremely isolated, and often evenly deadly.

3. The Farmer’s Advance The Great Plains geography and climate posed the greatest threat to the settlers. The Great Plains is a vast rolling grassy plain with little to no trees, limited river and water supplies, and sparse rainfall (less than 20 inches per year). The climate was also harsh because of massive thunderstorms with tornados (tornado alley), hot summers with prairie fires, and blizzards during the winters with no natural shelter or protection from the elements.

4. The Farmer’s Advance The settlers either bought land from the government called a homestead (large tract of public land) or purchased land from speculators or the railroad companies. The farmers first had to build a home which was at first made out of sod (grass squares) stacked on top of each other called a “sodie” or built a dugout home into the side of a small hill. Only wealthier farmers could afford wood plank and frame homes because of the scarcity of wood on the Plains and the expense of it being shipped in by the railroad.

5. The Farmer’s Advance Farmers also needed to find a source of fuel to heat their home or to cook with, so buffalo chips (dry manure), cow manure, sunflower stalks, hay, or anything that would burn was used. The farmers who did not live close to a stream or river had to dig deep wells into the ground (up to 300 feet deep) with a windmill to pump the water out. The Plains farmers had to be completely self- sufficient because the closest town or neighbor could be more than 25 miles away (a day’s ride).

6. Homestead Homes

7. The Farmer’s Advance The next big challenge to the plains farmer was plowing, planting, and harvesting their crops. The farmers known as sodbusters (for plowing up the grasslands) had to deal with growing a crop with little rainfall. To deal with this problem many farmers practiced a technique called dry farming where the seed is planted deep into the ground where more moisture is at or planting the seed in the grass itself. The Great Plains farmers mostly grew wheat and corn, which took a lot of man power to harvest. (and with up to 160 acres this was tough)

8. The Farmer’s Advance The sodbusters had to deal also with swarms of locusts that could eat an entire crop. New inventions aided the farmers in their productivity: –John Deere’s Steel Plow – tougher and more durable to plow through the grasslands. –Joseph Gilden’s Barb Wire – allowed for a cheap fencing material to keep free range cattle out. –Cyrus McCormick's Mechanical Reaper – allowed grain crops to be harvested quicker than with hand held sickles or reapers.

9. The Farmer’s Advance –Trashing machines – separated the grain from the stalk and husks. –Grain or seed drill – machine planted seeds. –Harrow – broke up clods and clumps of soil to finish the soil for planting. –William Deering’s twine binders – gathered hay and banded it into a bundle. –Hiram Moore’s Combine – it combined the three processes of reaping, binding, and trashing into one step. All of these inventions allowed the plains farmer to become very productive turning the Great American Desert into the Bread Basket of the Country.

10. Farming Inventions

11. The Farmer’s Advance The new inventions also led to more emigration into the plains. The Exodustors were a group of southern blacks led by Benjamin “Pap” Singleton on an “Exodus” from the South due to increased violence into Western lands. Both black and white farmers found it tough to survive on the plains due to cattle rangers, crop failures, railroad and grain elevator rates, and high bank loans. Many farmers lost their farms to banks, who then sold their land to commercial farming companies which developed Bonanza Farms (large multi tract farms). The first one was the Dalrymple Farm, which led to the development of steam engines and tractors.

12. Conflict on the Plains The closing in of the open range by farmers led to constant conflict between the farmers and cowboys. The cattle ranchers also fought sheep herders, whose sheep ate root and all unlike cows who only ate the leaves. The U.S. Army’s Calvary units also had to “protect” American settlers from Indian attacks. One of the most famous of these Calvary units was the all black 10 th Calvary Unit (also later 9 th, 24 th, and 25th) called the Buffalo Soldiers.

13. Buffalo Soldiers

14. The Range Wars The collection of conflicts between American settlers in the Plains is collectively known as the Range Wars or Plains’ War. Many of these conflicts broke out over water rights to rivers, springs, or wells that were very scarce in the Plains region. The final conquering of the “Wild West” and the Western Frontier did not involve settlement of the area, but the killing and removal of the Native American tribes who lived on the land by the U.S. Military to make it “safe” for white encroachment or settlement.

15. Oklahoma Land Rush The Oklahoma territory was set aside for Native Americans as Indian territory, but white settlers called Boomers were constantly squatting (living on a piece of land without legal claim to it), having to be ran off by the army. In 1889 after the government “purchased” the land from the Indians to be given away in homesteads in a grand race called the Oklahoma Land Rush. To people’s surprise after the race started, these people found settlers already living on the land called Sooners (people who crossed illegally and laid claim to the land by squatter’s rights).

16. Oklahoma Land Rush