Old West Group

It was the building of the railroads that spurred western settlement. In 1862, Congress authorized construction of two railroads to link the Midwest and the West Coast. The Union Pacific Railroad extended westward from Nebraska; the Central Pacific Railroad went eastward from the Pacific Ocean. The meeting of the two railroads at Promontory Summit, Utah, in 1869 signified a new era in Western history.

Federal and state governments had long encouraged the growth of railroads. When Congress authorized building the transcontinental railroad in 1862, it agreed to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the two corporations to construct it. Congress also gave the railroad companies millions of acres of Western land, which the railroads sold to repay their loans. In effect, major railroad companies, with federal support, became colonizers of the West.

To attract settlers who would establish farms and become paying customers, the railroads advertised in the East and in Europe. They provided free trips west and offered long-term loans to settlers. Once the settlers had set up farms, they depended on the railroads to ship their produce. Farmers often became deeply in debt to the railroads, and to repay these debts they frequently relied on a single cash crop—typically wheat. Reliance on a single crop made their incomes dependent on fluctuating world markets and thus precarious.

The railroads became very powerful. They established monopolies in specific locales, cut off service, fixed prices, and discriminated among customers. A railroad might offer rebates to favored customers or charge more for a short haul than a long one. Aggrieved by such practices, farmers soon tried to curb the power of railroad corporations.

The Farmers….
Federal land policy attracted settlers and land speculators. The Homestead Act of 1862 provided land, originally 160 acres, at no cost if the settler agreed to cultivate the land for at least five years. As settlers moved into arid areas farther west, however, the 160-acre plots proved insufficient, so the size of land grants increased.

As farmers settled more western land, the nation's agricultural production grew. Several factors increased productivity. New farm machinery, new varieties of grain, and advancements in fencing, enabled farmers to protect their property from roaming livestock. The railroads made it possible for Western farm produce to be sold in Eastern cities.

However, pioneers who established farms in the Plains, faced difficult and isolated lives. They also lost much of their independence. Farmers had grown increasingly dependent on large businesses; railroads transported their crops, banks loaned them money, manufacturers sold them farm machinery, and unstable international markets for wheat and corn determined their income. Overproduction, meanwhile, drove prices down. Farmers were frustrated by sagging prices, rising debt, high interest rates, and such railroad practices, as fixed prices or discrimination among customers. Farmers no longer felt in charge of their own fates.

To try to address some of their problems, farmers joined together and founded the National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry, or the Grange, which established cooperative stores and urged laws to curb railroad abuses. In a number of states, the Grangers supported the passage of laws that regulated railroad rates and practices.

The railroads transformed the cattle industry, just as they had transformed farming, by transporting cattle to urban markets in the East. When a rail line reached Abilene, Kansas, Texas ranchers began to drive their cattle north to Abilene; while Wyoming ranchers founded cow towns or staging areas along the Union Pacific line through the Territories. The cattle then traveled east, destined for packing houses. The cattle industry began to grow rapidly as railroads made the business more profitable.

Native Americans Living on the Plains.
After the Civil War, hope of economic opportunity lured migrants and immigrants west to the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain region. Settlers battled Native Americans for desirable lands, carved out farms, and built mines and ranches.

The Native Americans of the Great Plains included diverse tribes—among them the Blackfoot, Sioux, Dakota, Cheyenne, Comanche, Arapaho, Navajo, and Apache. After the Civil War, the Native Americans confronted a growing stream of settlers—prospectors, ranchers, and farm families. The newcomers brought with them new diseases that ravaged the tribes. The settlers also killed off the buffalo and thus damaged the Native American economy.

The Plains peoples defended their land and their way of life from the oncoming settlers. Fierce battles took place over the years between the Plains peoples, settlers, white hunters and prospectors, and federal troops. Ultimately, disease and conflict reduced the population and power of the tribes.

Displacement by settlers and concentration on Indian reservations, mainly in Oklahoma, Wyoming, and the Dakotas, challenged the traditional Native American way of life.

The American Indians' land was taken from them, they were forced to live on reservations, and they did not have the manpower to fight back. Many reservations were on worthless land. They could not farm or raise stock on much of the land. Most devastating for their culture was the lack of hunting on the reservations.

By the late 1860's, the government's policy of removing Indians from desirable areas (graphically represented by the transfer of the Five Civilized Tribes from the Southeast to Oklahoma-the Cherokees called it the "Trail of Tears") had run its course and was succeeded by one of concentrating them on reservations. The practice of locating tribes in other than native or decent surroundings and of joining uncongenial bands led to more than one Indian war. Some bands found it convenient to accept reservation status and government rations during the winter months, returning to the warpath and hunting trail in the milder seasons. Many bands of many tribes refused to accept the treaties offered by a peace commission and resisted the government's attempt to confine them to specific geographical limits; it fell to the Army to force compliance. In his area, General Sheridan now planned to hit the Indians in their permanent winter camps.

While a winter campaign presented serious logistical problems, it offered opportunities for decisive results. If the Indians' shelter, food, and livestock could be destroyed or captured, not only the warriors but their women and children were at the mercy of the Army and the elements, and there was little left but surrender. Here was the technique of total war, a practice that raised certain moral questions for many officers and men that were never satisfactorily resolved.

For the most part, events occurred along the two main westward routes across Wyoming, the Oregon Trail, and the Overland Stage route.

The Oregon Trail, two thousand and twenty miles long, extended from Independence, Mo., to Fort Kearney, Nebraska, following the south bank of the North Platte to Fort Laramie, thence westward past Platte Bridge station to Fort Bridger, northwest, to Fort Boise, and on to the Pacific.

The Overland Stage route, the South Platte route, extended from Fort McPherson westward through Julesburg, Fort Collins, Virginia Dale, to Fort Halleck, and across Green river valley to Fort Bridger, where it touched the Oregon trail and turned sharply southwest to Salt Lake City.

A third route is the Bozeman trail, but extending farther into Montana and the Dakotas.

When the Overland stage route was opened along the Platte, it became the favorite road for stage coaches, overland mail, wagon trains, and freighters. It is impossible to conceive of the magnitude of this traffic. Russell, Majors, and Waddell, government contractors, who transported military supplies to the forts along the trails, used more than six thousand wagons, with a capacity of three tons each, and seventy-five thousand oxen. Ben Holladay operated daily about five thousand miles of stage coaches, having an equipment of five hundred freight wagons, five hundred coaches and express wagons, five thousand horses and mules, and numerous oxen.

The vast throng of emigrants, the Overland stage, the Overland mail, the wagon trains and freighters, and the two thousand miles of telegraph lines were all dependent for protection against Indian hostilities upon the utterly inadequately garrisoned forts and stations scattered at wide intervals along three thousand miles of trails.