Chapter 17 Section 1

Vocabulary Immigrate- to move to a foreign region or country(pg. 581) Manual- involving work done by hand(pg. 581) Vigilantes- or self-appointed law keepers(pg. 580) Subsides- are grants of land or money(pg. 580) Transcontinental railroad- a railroad line that spanned the continent (pg. 581)

Boom and Bust The Comstock Lode Before the civil war, prospectors began searching for gold in Sierra Nevada. Two Irish prospectors found the gold they were looking for. A third man, Henry Comstock said the claim was on his land. The find became know as the Comstock Lode. (A lode is a rich vein of ore.) In 20 years, the Comstock lode produced $300 million worth of silver and made Nevada a center of mining. 1

Boom and Bust The Boom Spreads After the Civil War, prospectors fanned out the West. They found valuable ores in Montana, Idaho, and Colorado The gold strike is in South Dakota’s Black Hills Comstock gave up and sold his mining rights for $11,000 and two mules Many other prospectors sold their claims to large mining companies . By the 1880, western mining had became a big business.

Boom and Bust Boomtown Life Mining camps quickly grew into boomtowns. As hotels stores and other wood frames mining equipment or merchants stores some times minors had to pay high prices for bottle water, didn’t want to drink from the streams because they were polluted with chemicals used from mining Nearly half of the minors were foreign-born hostility between Germans, Chinese, Spanish, and Mobs drove the Chinese from town.

Boom and Bust Frontier Justice www.old-picture.com Boom and Bust Frontier Justice Mining towns were spreading quickly to a point where the law and order was hard to find. Because of that miners formed groups of vigilantes or self-appointed law keepers. They hunted down bandits and made their own brand of justice. In 1861, Colorado, Dakota, and Nevada organized into territories, followed by Arizona and Idaho in 1863 and Montana in 1864. As the mine shuts down and miners moved away with few customers, businesses failed and merchants left. Boomtowns became into ghost towns.

The Railroad Boom Aid to Railroads Railroads races to lay track to the mines and boomtowns. Received generous help from the federal government. before 1860, railroads ended at the Mississippi river, but later the federal offered subsides. for every mile of track the government gave the railroad 10 square miles of land. Railroads got more than 180 million acres, an area the size of Texas.

The Railroad Boom Spanning the Continent timesillustrated.com Many westerners dreamed of a transcontinental railroad. 1862, Leland Stanford and his partners won right to build a line eastward from Sacramento. Their railroad was the Central Pacific. Another railroad, the Union Pacific, that was built West from Omaha. The lines met, tracks that would stretch from coast to coast . The railroads hired thousands of workers, many workers immigrated from Mexico and Ireland to the United States. Central Pacific brought 10,000 Chinese to the United States. Work was dangerous and did not have any pay, cutting through the Sierra Nevada, Chinese manual laborers were lashed by snow and winds. Avalanches buried weeks of work and killed worker by the score. At last on May 10, 1869, the two lines met at Promontory, Utah. Stanford the final spike through the last rail.

The Railroad Boom Effects of the Railroads The new towns were formed in the West. People and supplies came in, Gold and Silver poured out. The population growth brought political changes. Nevada became a state in 1864; Colorado in 1876; North Dakoda, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington in 1889; Idaho and Wyoming in 1890.

By: Payge Kaylea