 Discoveries of precious metals in the West causes the explosion of boomtowns  No established gov’t, vigilance committees enforce the “law”  Boomtowns cause territorial populations to grow, qualify for statehood  Mining tech improves as mines exhausted, hydraulic mining allows for exaction of minerals  Mining has devastating effects on environment

 Texas Longhorn: breed of cattle adapted to life in Amer. West with little water, eat prairie grass  Open range: vast gov’t owned land for grazing  Ranchers take their cattle on long drives to R.R.  Over time the open range is bought up by farmers and fenced with barbed wire

 Mexican land owners in Southwest owned large tracts of land called haciendas  Americans move west and quickly outnumber Hispanics who lived there since Spanish times  Resulting culture clash, Hispanics marginalized  As railroads reach SW, pop. Grows  El Paso, Albuquerque, Los Angeles develop barrios

 Great Plains present challenges:  Few trees for timber  Extreme temperatures  Insect plagues  Drinking water very deep under ground  Solutions:  Sod houses  Deep water wells with hand pumps  Homesteading

Sod Houses of the 1800s

 A&M Universities develop new farming tech:  Dry Farming : deep planting to draw moisture  Dry soil easily eroded, many farmers bust  Wheat proves best crop for Plains conditions  Tech. innovations improve farming capacity  Large wheat farms = $$$  Some wheat farms as big as 65,000 acres  Large, profitable farms= bonanza farms  1880s: USA=world’s largest wheat exporter  Wheat prices fall, drought hits G.P.=bad times  1900: 1/3 of farmers are tenants on their own land  1889: Oklahoma is last frontier, settlers rush in