1. What do…
…have in common?

2. The Wild Wild West!!!
Why did people move
to the Wild Wild West?

3. The Homestead Act of 1862 encourages US citizens to move West.
This alleviates the crowding in eastern cities and allows for greater production and more economic gain in The WEST!
But the Civil War prevented a mass migration!

4. An application for land.
People staked their claim by finding a section of land that was marked.
Then they registered the piece of land with the government.
After cultivating the land for five years, it was theirs for free.

5. How did the Homesteaders...
…Go West?

6. People traveled West using wagons “trains”
But new technologies like trains and steamboats encouraged even more to migrate!

7. Families built plow farms, sodhouses, and learned to live off the land.
Again…new technology, like the mechanical reaper and the tractor, made this possible!

8. It was a difficult life for the western farmers.
They had to cut through thick, hard earth called sod.
Winters were harsh; cold, windy with a lot of snowstorms called blizzards.
Summers were hot and had little rain.
Farmers had to use a technique called dry-farming (growing crops that needed little water.)
Sometimes grasshoppers would eat all the crops.

9. Why else did people move West? It was clearly not an easy feat!

10. The Gold Rush
Comstock Lode
Forty-Niners

11. Panning for gold was not easy either…
I can’t find any. How about you?
Nope. Me either.

12. But people still moved West to find gold and other precious metals!

13. People even moved from foreign lands!
Immigrants, such as Mexicans, Chinese and the Irish, went to work in the mines.
Immigrants were treated poorly with long hours, low pay and very dangerous work.

14. How does the life of a miner…
…change the landscape?

15. Boom towns and Ghost towns.
Gold or Silver strike
Miners arrive and build a small town.
More people come to sell supplies.
Real houses get built.
Boom Town
Gold or silver production falls – decreases.
Miners move on.
The town is abandoned.
Ghost Town.

16. How do we get the people to stay when the town goes BUST?
What if all the towns eventually go BUST?
How do we get the people to stay when the town goes BUST?

17. If we can’t mine…
…how else can we survive out here?

18. Cattle…worth its weight in gold?
MAYBE?

19. Cowboys and Vaqueros

21. Ranchers and Cowhands drove the cattle to the Railroad.
Final Destination:
The plates of Americans in the cities of the East!

22. The job of a cowboy was no easier than the miner or the farmer!

23. African Americans also moved West after the Civil War.

24. African Americans that moved West were called Exodusters.
Many African Americans moved to the West from the 1840s to late 1890s.
They were escaping the difficult life in the South where Whites practiced Jim Crow Laws and denied African Americans their new Constitutional Rights.

25. Why were they called Exodusters?
I hope there’s no KKK.
I hope there’s no slavery in the West.
Maybe we can actually vote in the West.

27. The Union Pacific meets the Central Pacific in Promontory, Utah.
The Transcontinental Railroad finished in 1869 “opens” the West even MORE!
The Union Pacific meets the Central Pacific in Promontory, Utah.

28. Many Immigrants, such as Irish, Mexicans and Chinese worked to build the Railroad.

29. The Railroads made the West even more WILD!
Railroads brought growth and new settlement all across the West.
The railroads enabled people, supplies, and mail to move quickly and cheaply and safer across the plains and the mountains.
The largest cities and towns developed where major railroad lines met.
Because of their rapid growth, western territories began to apply for statehood. Nevada, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana and Washington all became states from 1864 – 1890.

30. The Railroad also spurs the growth of old and new industries.
The lumber industry grows, because wood is needed to build the train tracks.
The steel industry grows because steel is needed to build the tracks.
The coal industry grows because coal is needed to fuel the train.
The cattle industry grows because there are more mouths to feed as immigration increases.
This means thousands of new jobs for workers and more reasons to move west.

31. The Great Plains… blue skies and open prairies...
…but how open is it really!

32. Buffalo roamed the Plains.

33. Plains Indians hunted the buffalo.

34. The buffalo is used for tepees, clothes, tools, food and more.

35. Deerskin, bird feathers and cloth were also used in Native American culture.

36. Native Americans lived off the land!
With less land to go around,
The West became even more Wild!

37. The buffalo hide business becomes very popular and settlers kill millions of buffalo.

38. BROKEN PROMISES!
The United States government made many treaties with the Native Americans not to fight and not to touch certain areas of their land.
For example, The Fort Laramie Treaty was a treaty made with the Cheyenne tribe, where Americans said an area of land belonged to the Cheyenne forever!
However, when gold was discovered there, the Americans forced them to sign a new treaty giving up the land.
The United States government broke many treaties with the Native Americans.

39. Many Wars. Many Heroes. Many Wars Sioux War of 1876 The Apache Wars
Battle of Little Bighorn
Nez Perces
Many Heroes
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
Geronimo
Lakota & Cheyenne
Chief Joseph

40. Native Americans are forced onto reservations.

41. The Dawes Act divided Indian land and gave some to the Indians in hopes they would become farmers. But the rest was sold to settlers for low prices.

42. Native Americans prayed for a new world without Whites through the Ghost Dance.

43. Laws today protect Native American Reservations,
but their territory is drastically reduced.

44. Native Americans Today
Many Native Americans are a part of modern US society, however, many still live on reservations and try to maintain their cultures.
New laws have returned some Native American lands back to the rightful owners.
How would you feel about this era in US History if you were a Native American?

45. By the late 1800s, all of the states that make up the “Lower 48” had identified boundaries with functioning governments… …by 1912, all of these states were admitted to the Union!

46. So…..how was the “Wild West” of the 1870s like the “Wild West” of the 1990s and today?
List at least 5 ways!