Looking to the West (1860-1900)

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Looking to the West (1860-1900)

• Miners, Ranchers, Farmers, Cowboys

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The Spread of Western Mining
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Mining

• Young, single men
• Desire to strike it rich
• Cherry Creek, CO
• Other CO places in the mountains
• Helena, MT
• Virginia City, NV
• Black Hills (South Dakota)

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The Mining Frontier

• Some small prospectors made fortunes
• Most money made by large mining corporations.
• Mining towns had high populations of foreigners.
• Environmental destruction due to blasting,
  chemicals, and water pollution.

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Minings Economic Impacts

• The added gold (and silver)
• Boosted U.S. economy
• Increased foreign investment
• Stimulated U.S. involvement in global economy

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Ranching

• Fences
• Large tracts of land
• Huge herds of cattle
• Rise of the Cattle Barons

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The Cattle Trails

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Texas Longhorn Cattle

• Durable
• Tough
• Ornery
• Good sense of smell - could locate sources of
  groundwater

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Longhorn Cattle
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Trail Drivers
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The American Cowboy

• Romanticized
• Mythologized
• Lonely, rugged existence
• Necessary for Cattle business
• The Virginian

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The Cattle Drives

• Romanticized, difficult
• Spurred growth of RRs
• Food on the hoof fed growing demand in Eastern
  Markets and for Miners
• Depended on the Open Range

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Farming as Business

• Improved farming technologies
• Mechanical Reaper (Early Combine)
• Barbed wire
• Dry farming
• Steel Plow
• Windmills
• Hybridization
• Seed drills
• Led to Bonanza farms
• Specialized in a single cash crop
• The rise of agribusiness.

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New Technology Eases Farm Labor
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Farming Technologies and Innovations
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Bonanza Farms

• 10,000 acre farms
• Wheat boom of the 1880s
• Population in Dakotas tripled
• Overproduction, high investment costs, droughts,
  and reliance on one-crop agriculture brought an
  end to the boom
• 1890 prices fell, some lost everything

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The Wild West

• Gunfights
• Outlaws (Billy the Kid)
• Marshals and Sheriffs (Wyatt Earp)
• Mythical
• Dodge City, KS
• Tombstone, AZ

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Myth vs. Reality

• Myth
• Cowboys were romantic, self-sufficient, and
  virtuous
• All were white
• Ideal, garden of Eden
• Could make a fortune in the west
• Western towns were lawless

• Reality
• Cowboys were young, poorly paid, and did hard
  labor
• 20 were black or Mexican
• Harmonious race relations on the trail
• Harsh conditions
• Most made little, if any money
• There were police forces and order in the West

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The Western Myth

• Some (Roosevelt) saw social Darwinism in the
  west.
• Perceived as the last chance to build a truly
  good society
• Novels and accounts glossed over hard labor and
  ethnic strife.
• Reality, western settlement depended more upon
  companies and railroads than individuals.

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Frontier Myths
The Wild West Some elements of the frontier
myths were true. Yet, many wild towns of the West
calmed down fairly quickly or disappeared.
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The Frontier Myth

• Still lives in the American imagination
• Depicted in movies
• TV shows (Frontier House, Little House on the
  Prairie, Gunsmoke, etc.)

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