1. Miners Ranchers Farmers
chapter 7, section 3

2. Miners

4. The Klondike Gold Rush 1896-1899 Actually in Canada
Last great American Gold Rush

5. Finding Gold
Individual prospectors look for traces of gold in mountain streams (placer mining)

6. 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

7. 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

8. Foreign Backlash Resentment among whites
Miner’s Tax ($20 / month) in CA
Chinese Exclusion Act (1882) prohibited further Chinese immigration

9. Ranchers

10. 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

11. Railroads
RR starts in Kansas (Cow towns) RR goes to KC, St. Louis, Chicago
Steers bought for $5 / head and sold for up to $80 / head
Refrigerated railcars made it even cheaper.

12. Cattle Drives RR didn’t go into TX Cowboys drove cattle to Kansas
1 cowboy per cattle up to 1,500 miles to Kansas $30 per month, paid in 1 lump sum

18. End of Cattle Drives 1880s overgrazing destroyed the grass
blizzard and drought (90% of cattle die)

19. Farmers

20. 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

21. Housing
Made of sod strips of grass with thick roots and earth attached
No trees to make houses No trees to make fences

23. Hard Times
Many discover that 160 acres is not enough to survive. 2 of 3 farms fail by 1900

24. 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)

25. Bonanza Farms Run like big business High volume Drove down prices
Squeezed out the small farmers

26. Dry Farming The only way to farm successfully in the GP
Crops that don’t require much water
Keeping fields free of weeds

27. Frontier Myths

28. Not as wild as you thought…

29. The Closing of the Frontier
The move westward began in the 1860’s
In 1890, the Department of the Interior declared that the frontier was settled.
Government begins to reserve land.
The West opened and closed in a generation…