MinersRanchers

Farmers

chapter 7, section 3

Miners

Gold Miners• California gold rush, 1849 (49ers)• near Pike’s Peak, 1859 (59ers)• Comstock Lode

–$400 million in gold and silver by 1890–Responsible for Nevada’s statehood

Finding Gold• Individual prospectors look for

traces of gold in mountain streams(placer mining)

• When found, deep-shaft mining begins.–Expensive equipment required–Wealthy investors required

Boom Towns• Rich strikes created boom towns

saloons, dance-hall girls, vigilantes• Many became ghost towns just a

few years later.• Other towns that served the

mines became important commercial centers.–San Francisco, Sacramento, Denver

Mining Towns• Similar to industrial cities• Workers were also from Europe,

Latin America, and China.• ½ the population was often

foreign born• Greatly increased Western

population

Foreign Backlash• Resentment among whites• Miner’s Tax ($20 / month) in CA• Chinese Exclusion Act (1882)

prohibited further Chinese immigration

Ranchers

Ranching• Civil War – TX is cut off from CSA

5 million heads of cattle roam freely• TX cattle business – easy to enter

FREE CATTLE!• Ranchers Kill off the buffalo

Railroads• RR starts in Kansas

(Cow towns) RR goes to KC, St. Louis, Chicago

• Steers bought for $5 / headand sold for up to $80 / head

• Refrigerated railcars made it even cheaper.

Cattle Drives• RR didn’t go into TX

Cowboys drove cattle to Kansas• 1 cowboy per 300-500 cattle

up to 1,500 miles to Kansas$30 per month, paid in 1 lump sum (for quick spending)

End of Cattle Drives• 1880s

overgrazing destroyed the grass• 1885-1886

blizzard and drought(90% of cattle die)

Farmers

Farming• Homestead Act of 1862

160 acres is yours after 5 years• 500,000 Homestead families

2.5 million families had to buy land from the RR

Housing• Made of sod

strips of grass with thick roots and earth attached

• No trees to make housesNo trees to make fences

• Joseph Glidden invents barbed wire to fence GP land.

Hard Times• Many discover that 160 acres is

not enough to survive.2 of 3 farms fail by 1900

The Family• Everyone had to work in order

to survive–Men did heavy manual labor–Children collected wood & carried water–Women did chores around the house,

managed the money, raised the children, provided food (crops, butter, chickens, milk)

Bonanza Farms

• Run like big business

• High volume• Drove down

prices• Squeezed out the

small farmers

Dry Farming• The only way to farm

successfully in the GP–Crops that don’t require much water–Keeping fields free of weeds–Digging deep furrows to reach the water

• New plows developed to make several furrows at once.

Frontier Myths

Not as wild as you thought…

The Closing of the Frontier

• The move westward began in the 1860’s

• In 1890, the Department of the Interior declared the that the frontier was settled.

• Government begins to reserve land.

• The West opened and closed in a generation…