Section 1 – pg 452 Mining and Railroads Chapter 13 Section 1 – pg 452 Mining and Railroads

Boom and Bust Settlement in the west came in a rush Pg 452 Especially true where gold or silver was found Many new towns sprang up but didn’t last long

Pg 452 The Comstock Lode Just before the Civil War, prospectors began searching for gold in the Sierra Nevada In 1859, two Irish guys found a gold vein A third guy, Henry Comstock, said it was on his land Became known as the Comstock Lode

Pg 452 - 453 At the Comstock Lode, a blue-tinted sand stuck to all the equipment, making it harder to mine gold Turned out to be silver loaded mud The silver turned out to be more valuable than the gold This was one of the richest mines in the world In the next 20 years, produced $300 million worth of silver and made Nevada a center of mining The tent city near the mine turned into Virginia City, Nevada

Pg 453 The Boom Spreads After the Civil War, prospectors fanned out over the West Valuable ore found in Montana, Idaho, Colorado, Alaska Few prospectors got rich Ore was deep underground and expensive to extract Comstock gave up and sold their claim for $11,000 and 2 mules Many others sold their claims to large mining companies By the 1800s, western mining became big business

Boomtown Life Tent cities often arose around mining Pg 453 Boomtown Life Tent cities often arose around mining Soon hotels, stores, and other wood framed buildings appeared Mining camps turned into boomtowns Merchants followed prospectors as they moved Used mule teams to haul their tools, food, and clothing Nothing was cheap in a prospecting town Would pay high prices for bottles of clean drinking water Streams were polluted with chemicals used for mining, like arsenic

Women could easily make a good living Pg 453 http://www.discovery.com/tv-shows/klondike/videos/dawson-city-women.htm Women could easily make a good living Opened restaurants, wash clothes, took in boarders One woman became very wealthy in a year just from baking pies Most miners were foreign born Italian, German, Spanish, Chinese, and others Foreign miners often faced hostility Laws restricted Chinese miners to claims abandoned by others Mobs often drove the Chinese from towns

Pg 454 Frontier Justice Mining towns were put up so fast that often there was no law and order Miners formed groups of vigilantes, self-appointed law keepers Hunted down bandits and imposed their own rough form of justice

Pg 454 As towns grew and became more permanent, sheriffs, marshals, and judges replaced these groups 1861: Colorado, Dakota, Nevada organized into territories 1863: Arizona, Idaho 1864: Montana Soon all ore was extracted in some towns Mines shut down and miners moved Businesses failed and merchants left Boomtowns often turned to ghost towns

The Railroad Boom Railroads raced to lay track to mines and boomtowns Pg 454 The Railroad Boom Railroads raced to lay track to mines and boomtowns Got help from the federal gov’t

Pg 454 Aid to Railroads Before 1860, railroad lines ended at the Missouri River Federal gov’t began to offer subsidies (grants of land or money) For every mile of track, the gov’t gave the railroad 10 square miles of land next to the track Got more than 180 million acres (the size of Texas) Also received federal loans

Spanning the Continent Pg 455 Spanning the Continent Westerners dreamed of a transcontinental railroad (a railroad line that spanned the continent) 1862, Leland Stanford and his partners won the right to build a line eastward from San Francisco Central Pacific Another railroad, Union Pacific, would build west from Omaha The tracks would meet, stretching across the nation

The railroads hired thousands of workers Whites, Mexican Americans, African Americans Workers immigrated from Mexico, Ireland, and China The Central Pacific brought 10,000 Chinese to the US Work was dangerous with low pay While cutting through the Sierras, workers were met with snow, fierce wind, and avalanches, which often buried weeks of work in minutes and killed dozens of workers Pg 455

May 10, 1869, the two lines met at Promontory, Utah Leland drove in the final spike in with a silver mallet Pg 455

Effects of the Railroads Pg 455 Effects of the Railroads New towns sprang up in the west People and supplies poured in, gold and silver poured out Rapid population growth brought political changes Nevada became a state in 1864 Colorado – 1876 North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington -1889 Idaho, Wyoming - 1890

Pg 455 http://www.history.com/topics/inventions/transcontinental-railroad/videos/transcontinental-railroad