GROWTH OF THE COUNTRY FROM 1860 TO 1880
THE WEST.--In 1860 the great West bore little resemblance to its present
appearance. The only states wholly or partly west of the Mississippi River
were Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas. Louisiana, Texas, California,
and Oregon. Kansas territory extended from Missouri to the Rocky
Mountains. Nebraska territory included the region from Kansas to the
British possessions, and from Minnesota and Iowa to the Rocky Mountains.
New Mexico territory stretched from Texas to California, Utah territory
from the Rocky Mountains to California, and Washington territory from the
mountains to the Pacific.
[Illustration: SCENE IN A MINING TOWN. Deadwood, Dakota, in the '70's.]
GOLD AND SILVER MINING.--One decade, however, completely changed the West.
In 1858 gold was discovered on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains,
near Pikes Peak; gold hunters rushed thither, Denver was founded, and in
1861 Colorado was made a territory. Kansas, reduced to its present limits,
was admitted as a state the same year, and the northern part of Nebraska
territory was cut off and called Dakota territory (map, p. 352).
In 1859 silver was discovered on Mount Davidson (then in western Utah),
and population poured thither. Virginia City sprang into existence, and in
1861 Nevada was made a territory and in 1864, with enlarged boundaries,
was admitted into the Union as a state.
[Illustration: THE WEST.]
Precious metals were found in 1862 in what was then eastern Washington;
the old Fort Boise of the Hudson's Bay Company became a thriving town,
other settlements were made, and in 1863 the territory of Idaho was
organized. In the same year Arizona was cut off from New Mexico.
Hardly had this been done when gold was found on the Jefferson fork of the
Missouri River. Bannack City, Virginia City, and Helena were founded, and
in 1864 Montana was made a territory. [1]
In 1867 Nebraska became a state, and the next year Wyoming territory was
formed.
OVERLAND TRAILS.--When Lincoln was inaugurated in 1861, no railroad
crossed the plains. The horse, the stagecoach, the pack train, the prairie
schooner, [2] were the means of transportation, and but few routes of
travel were well defined. The Great Salt Lake and California trail,
starting in Kansas, followed the north branch of the Platte River to the
mountains, crossed the South Pass, and went on by way of Salt Lake City to
Sacramento. Over this line, once each week, a four-horse Concord coach [3]
started from each end of the route.
From Independence in Missouri another line of coaches carried the mail
over the old Santa Fe trail to New Mexico.
The great Western mail route began at St. Louis, went across Missouri and
Arkansas, curved southward to El Paso in Texas, and then by way of the
Gila River to Los Angeles and San Francisco; the distance of 2729 miles
was covered in twenty-four days. [4]
[Illustration: OVERLAND MAIL COACH STARTING FROM SAN FRANCISCO FOR THE
EAST IN 1858. Contemporary drawing.]
PONY EXPRESS.--This was too slow for business men, and in 1860 the stage
company started the Pony Express to carry letters on horseback from St.
Joseph to San Francisco. Mounted on a swift pony, the rider, a brave,
cool-headed, picked man, would gallop at breakneck speed to the first
relay station, jump on the back of another pony and speed away to the
second, mount a fresh horse and be off for a third. At the third station
he would find a fresh rider mounted, who, the moment the mail bags had
been fastened to his horse, would ride off to cover his three stations in
as short a time as possible. The riders left each end of the route twice a
week or oftener. The total distance, about two thousand miles, was passed
over in ten days. [5]
In the large cities of the East free delivery of letters by carriers was
introduced (1863), the postal money order system was adopted (1864), and
trials were made with postal cars in which the mail was sorted while _en
route_.
THE TELEGRAPH.--Meanwhile Congress (in June, 1860) incorporated the
Pacific Telegraph Company to build a line across the continent. By
November the line reached Fort Kearny, where an operator was installed in
a little sod hut. By October, 1861, the two lines, one building eastward
from California, and the other westward from Omaha, reached Salt Lake
City. The charge for a ten-word message from New York to Salt Lake City
was 87.50.
When the telegraph line was finished, the work of the Pony Express ended,
and all letters went by the overland stage line, whose coaches entered
every large mining center, carrying passengers, express matter, and the
mail. [6]
OVERLAND FREIGHT.--The discovery of gold in western Kansas, in 1858, and
the founding of Denver, led to a great freight business across the plains.
Flour, bacon, sugar, coffee, dry goods, hardware, furniture, clothing,
came in immense quantities to Omaha, St. Joseph, Atchison, Leavenworth,
there to be hauled to the "diggings." Atchison became a trade center.
There, in the spring of 1860, might have been seen hundreds of wagons, and
tons of goods piled on the levee, and warehouses full of provisions,
boots, shoes, and clothing. From it, day after day, went a score of
prairie schooners drawn by horses, mules, or oxen. [7]
THE RAILROAD.--The idea of a railroad over the plains was, as we have
seen, an old one; but at last, in 1862, Congress chartered two railroad
companies to build across the public domain from the Missouri River to
California. One, the Union Pacific, was to start at Omaha and build
westward. The other, the Central Pacific, was to start in California and
build eastward till the two met. Work was begun in November, 1865, and in
May, 1869, the two lines were joined at Promontory Point, near Salt Lake
City.
As the railroad progressed, the overland coaches plied between the ends of
the two sections, their runs growing shorter and shorter till, when the
road was finished, the overland stagecoach was discontinued.
THE HOMESTEAD LAW.--When the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads
were chartered, they were given immense land grants; [8] but in the same
year (1862) the Homestead Law was enacted. Under the provisions of this
law a farm of 80 or 160 acres in the public domain might be secured by any
head of a family or person twenty-one years old who was a citizen of our
country or had declared an intention to become such, provided he or she
would live on the farm and cultivate it for five years. [9] Between 1863
and 1870, 103,000 entries for 12,000,000 acres were made. This showed that
the people desired the land, and was one reason why no more should be
given to corporations.
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.--In 1864 Congress had chartered a railroad for
the new Northwest, and had given the company an immense land grant. But
building did not begin till 1870. All went well till 1873, when a great
panic swept over the country and the road became bankrupt. It then
extended from Duluth to Bismarck. Two years later the company was
reorganized, and the road was finished in 1883. [10]
WHEAT FIELDS OF DAKOTA.--During the panic certain of the directors of the
road bought great tracts of land from the company, paying for them with
the railroad bonds. On some of these lands in the valley of the Red River
of the North an attempt was made to raise wheat in 1876. It proved
successful, and the next year a wave of emigration set strongly toward
Dakota. In 1860 there were not 5000 people in Dakota; in 1870 there were
but 14,000, mostly miners; in 1880 there were 135,000.
PRAIRIE HOMES.--These newcomers--homesteaders, as they were often called--
broke up the prairie, planted wheat, raised sheep and cattle, and lived at
first in a dugout, or hole dug in the side of a depression in the prairie.
This was roofed (about the level of the prairie) with thick boards covered
with sods. After a year or two in such a home the settler would build a
sod house. The walls, two feet thick, were made of sods cut like great
bricks from the prairie. The roof would be of boards covered with shingles
or oftener with sods, and the walls inside would sometimes be whitewashed.
Near watercourses a few settlers found enough trees to make log cabins.
[Illustration: LOG CABIN WITH SOD ROOF.]
THE RANCHES.--Stretching across the country from Montana and Dakota to
Arizona lay the grass region, the great ranch country, where herds of
cattle grazed and were driven to the railroads to be taken to market. In
later years this became also the greatest sheep-raising and wool-producing
region in the Union.
BUFFALOES AND INDIANS.--With the building of the railroads and the coming
of the settlers the reckless slaughter of the buffalo and the crowding of
the Indians began. [11] To-day the buffalo is as rare an animal in the
West as in the East; and after many wars and treaties with the Indians,
they now hold less than one hundredth of the land west of the Mississippi.
[Illustration: CUSTER'S FIGHT.]
MECHANICAL PROGRESS.--The period 1860 to 1880 was one of great mechanical
and industrial progress. During this time dynamite and the barbed-wire
fence were introduced; the compressed-air rock drill, the typewriter, the
Westinghouse air brake, the Janney car coupler, the cable car, the trolley
systems, the electric light, the search light, electric motors, the Bell
telephone, the phonograph, the gas engine, and a host of other inventions
and mechanical devices were invented. To satisfy the demands of trade and
commerce, great works of engineering were undertaken, such as twenty years
before could not have been attempted. The jetties constructed by James B.
Eads in the South Pass at the mouth of the Mississippi, to force that
river to keep open its own channel; the steel-arch railroad bridge built
by Eads across the Mississippi at St. Louis; the Roebling suspension
bridges over the Ohio at Cincinnati and over the East River at New York;
and the successful laying of the Atlantic cable (1866) by Cyrus W. Field,
are a few of the great mechanical triumphs of this period.
INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT.--Industries once carried on in the household or in
small factories were conducted on a large scale by great corporations. The
machine for making tin cans made possible the canning industry. The self-
binding harvester and reaper made possible the immense grain fields of the
West. The production and refining of petroleum became an industry of great
importance. The great flour mills of Minneapolis, the iron and steel mills
of Pennsylvania, the packing houses of Chicago and Kansas City, and many
other enterprises were the direct result of the use of machinery.
[Illustration: STEEL MILL.]
RISE OF GREAT CORPORATIONS.--Trades and occupations, industries of all
sorts, began to concentrate and combine, and large corporations took the
place of individuals and small companies. In place of many little
railroads there were now trunk lines. [12] In place of many little
telegraph companies, express companies, and oil companies there were now a
few large ones.
[Illustration: SETTLED AREA IN 1880.]
IMMIGRATION.--This industrial development, in spite of machinery, could
not have been so great were it not for the increase in population, wealth,
the facilities of transportation, and the great number of workingmen.
These were largely immigrants, who came by hundreds of thousands year
after year. From about 90,000 in 1862, the number who came each year rose
to more than 450,000 in 1873; and then fell to less than 150,000 in 1878.
The population of the whole country in 1880 was 50,000,000, of whom more
than 6,500,000 were of foreign birth.
SUMMARY
1. The discovery of gold and silver near the Rocky Mountains in 1858 and
later brought to that region many thousand miners.
2. Their presence in that wild region made local government necessary, and
by 1868 seven new territories were formed (Colorado, Dakota, Nevada,
Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming), and one of them (Nevada, 1864) was
admitted into the Union as a state.
3. Means of communication with California and the far West were improved.
First came the Pony Express, then the telegraph, and finally the railroad.
4. The construction of the railroad across the middle of the country was
followed by the building of another near the northern border.
5. Railroad building, the Homestead Law, and the success of the Dakota
wheat farms, led to the rapid development of the new Northwest.
6. Quite as noticeable is the mechanical and industrial progress of the
country, the rise of great corporations, and the flood of immigrants that
came to our shores each year.
FOOTNOTES
[1] For descriptions of the wild life in the new Northwest in the pioneer
days read Langford's Vigilante Days and Ways.
[2] A large wagon with a white canvas top.
[3] A kind of heavy coach, so called because first manufactured at
Concord, New Hampshire.
[4] When the war opened and Texas seceded, this route was abandoned, and
after April, 1861, letters and passengers went from St. Joseph by way of
Salt Lake City to California.
[5] All letters had to be written on the thinnest paper, and no more than
twenty pounds' weight was allowed in each of the two pouches. The trail
was infested with "road agents" (robbers), and roving bands of Indians
were ever ready to murder and scalp; but in summer and winter, by day and
night, over the plains and over the mountains, these brave men made their
dangerous rides, carrying no arms save a revolver and a knife. Each letter
had to be inclosed in a ten-cent stamped envelope and have on it in
addition for each half ounce five one-dollar stamps of the Pony Express
Company. The story of the Pony Express is told in Henry _Inman's Great
Salt Lake Trail_, Chap. viii.
[6] As the government had no post offices in the mining camps, the stage
company became the postmasters, delivered the letters, and charged twenty-
five cents for each. Sometimes the owner of a little store in a remote
mountain camp would act as postmaster, and charge a high price for sending
letters to or bringing them from the nearest stage station. One such used
a barrel for the letter box, and sent the mail once a month. A hole was
cut in the head of the barrel, and beside it was posted a notice which
read: "This is a Post Office. Shove a quarter through the hole with your
letter. We have no use for stamps as I carry the mail."
[7] The lighter articles went in wagons drawn by four or six horses or
mules, the heavier in great wagons drawn by six and eight yoke of oxen,
which made the trip to Denver in five weeks. The cost of provisions
brought in this way was very great. Thus in 1865, in Helena, Montana,
flour sold for $85 a sack of one hundred pounds. Potatoes cost fifty cents
in gold a pound, and coal oil, at Virginia City, $10 in gold a gallon.
Board and lodgings rose in proportion, and it was not uncommon to see
posted in the boarding houses such notices as this: "Board with bread at
meals, $32; board without bread, $22." Read Hough's _The Way to the
West_, pp. 200-221.
[8] Every other section in a strip of land twenty miles wide along the
entire length of the railroad. The government had always been liberal in
granting land to aid in the construction of roads, canals, and railroads,
and between 1827 and 1860 had given away for such purposes 215,000,000
acres. Had these acres been in one great tract it would have been seven
times as large as Pennsylvania. In 1862 Congress also added to its grants
for educational purposes (p. 301) by giving to each state from 90,000 to
990,000 acres of public land in aid of a college for teaching agriculture
and the mechanical arts.
[9] For conditions on which land could be secured before this, see p. 302.
[10] The history of the railroads across the continent is told in Cy.
Warman's _Story of the Railroad_; for the Northern Pacific, read pp.
179-196.
[11] White men eager for land invaded the Indian reservations; acts of
violence were frequent, and shameful frauds were perpetrated by the agents
of the government. The Indians, in retaliation, killed settlers and ran
off horses, mules, and cattle. There were uprisings of the Sioux in
Minnesota (1862) and in Montana (1866); but the worst offenders were the
Apaches of Arizona, and against them General Crook waged war in 1872.
Toward the close of 1872 the Modocs left their reservation in Oregon, took
refuge in the Lava Beds in northern California, and defied the troops sent
to drive them back. General Canby and several others were treacherously
murdered at a conference (1873), and a war of several months' duration
followed before the Modocs were forced to surrender. In 1874 the Cheyennes
(she-enz'), enraged at the slaughter of the buffaloes by the whites, made
cattle raids, and more fighting ensued. An attempt to remove the Sioux to
a new reservation led to yet another war in 1876, in which Lieutenant-
Colonel Custer and his force of 262 men were massacred in Montana. Read
Longfellow's poem _The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face_.
[12] Thus (1869) the New York Central (from Albany to Buffalo) and the
Hudson River (from New York to Albany) were combined and formed one
railroad under one management from New York to Buffalo.