THE LAST FRONTIER
In 1865 the frontier line generally followed the western limits of the states bordering the Mississippi Riv- er, but bulged outward beyond the eastern sections of Texas, Kansas, and Nebraska . Then, running north and south for nearly 1,600 kilome- ters, loomed huge mountain ranges, many rich in silver, gold, and other metals . To their west, plains and des- erts stretched to the wooded coastal ranges and the Pacific Ocean . Apart from the settled districts in Cali- fornia and scattered outposts, the vast inland region was populated by Native Americans: among them the Great Plains tribes — Sioux and Blackfoot, Pawnee and Cheyenne — and the Indian cultures of the South- west, including Apache, Navajo, and Hopi .
A mere quarter-century later, virtually all this country had been carved into states and territories .
CHAPTER 8: GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
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Miners had ranged over the whole of the mountain country, tunnel- ing into the earth, establishing little communities in Nevada, Montana, and Colorado . Cattle ranchers, tak- ing advantage of the enormous grasslands, had laid claim to the huge expanse stretching from Texas to the upper Missouri River . Sheep herders had found their way to the valleys and mountain slopes . Farm- ers sank their plows into the plains and closed the gap between the East and West . By 1890 the frontier line had disappeared .
Settlement was spurred by the Homestead Act of 1862, which granted free farms of 64 hectares to citizens who would occupy and improve the land . Unfortunately for the would-be farmers, much of the Great Plains was suited more for cattle ranching than farming, and by 1880 nearly 22,400,000 hectares of “free” land were in the hands of cattlemen or the railroads .
In 1862 Congress also voted a charter to the Union Pacific Rail- road, which pushed westward from Council Bluffs, Iowa, using mostly the labor of ex-soldiers and Irish im- migrants . At the same time, the Cen- tral Pacific Railroad began to build eastward from Sacramento, Cali- fornia, relying heavily on Chinese immigrant labor . The whole country was stirred as the two lines steadily approached each other, finally meet- ing on May 10, 1869, at Promontory Point in Utah . The months of labo- rious travel hitherto separating the two oceans was now cut to about six
days . The continental rail network grew steadily; by 1884 four great lines linked the central Mississippi Valley area with the Pacific .
The first great rush of population to the Far West was drawn to the mountainous regions, where gold was found in California in 1848, in Colorado and Nevada 10 years lat- er, in Montana and Wyoming in the 1860s, and in the Black Hills of the Dakota country in the 1870s . Miners opened up the country, established communities, and laid the founda- tions for more permanent settle- ments . Eventually, however, though a few communities continued to be devoted almost exclusively to min- ing, the real wealth of Montana, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, and California proved to be in the grass and soil . Cattle-raising, long an important industry in Texas, flour- ished after the Civil War, when enterprising men began to drive their Texas longhorn cattle north across the open public land . Feed- ing as they went, the cattle arrived at railway shipping points in Kan- sas, larger and fatter than when they started . The annual cattle drive became a regular event; for hundreds of kilometers, trails were dotted with herds moving northward .
Next, immense cattle ranches appeared in Colorado, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Dakota territory . Western cities flourished as centers for the slaughter of cat- tle and dressing of meat . The cat- tle boom peaked in the mid-1880s . By then, not far behind the rancher
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creaked the covered wagons of the farmers bringing their families, their draft horses, cows, and pigs . Under the Homestead Act they staked their claims and fenced them with a new invention, barbed wire . Ranchers were ousted from lands they had roamed without legal title .
Ranching and the cattle drives gave American mythology its last icon of frontier culture — the cow- boy . The reality of cowboy life was one of grueling hardship . As de- picted by writers like Zane Grey and movie actors such as John Wayne, the cowboy was a powerful mytho- logical figure, a bold, virtuous man of action . Not until the late 20th cen- tury did a reaction set in . Histori- ans and filmmakers alike began to depict “the Wild West” as a sordid place, peopled by characters more apt to reflect the worst, rather than the best, in human nature .