WESTWARD EXPANSION

MINING

• Many lodes of ore found in west
• Contained silver, gold, and copper
• Boomtowns were created
• (Towns that grew around mines)
• People heard of Comstock lode

COMSTOCK LODE

• Large lode of silver ore around Carson River, Nevada
• Thousands of mines were built by hopeful miners
• Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of gold and silver found
• Many people would profit

FARMING

• Lack of rainfall and infertile soil
• made farming in the west challenging
• Government was offering 160 acres of
• land to whoever was willing to farm
• Called Homestead act.

IMPROVED FARMING

• Many tools created to help farm in west
• Lightweight steel plows
• Barbed wire fences
• And more

OKLAHOMA LAND RUSH

• 10,000-50,000 people lined up at Oklahoma's border
• They would race to claim free farmland
• In the unclaimed territory of Oklahoma
• Boomers: People who participated in the land rush
• Sooners: People who snuck into Oklahoma before land rush

RANCHING

• Longhorns scattered across west from Spanish
• Beef worth a lot of money
• People would take their heard across the
• entire US to link them up to railroads
• Transcontinental railroad: Railroad which went across entire US

NATIVE AMERICAN CULTURE

REASONS FOR CHANGING

• N.A. culture was changed by many things
• Movement of whites onto their land
• U.S. Navy on their land

DAWES ACT

• Law which tried to split
• Indian tribes into plots
• and encourage the Indians
• to start farming and become Americans

THE END