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Chapter 19

Section 2

Ranchers and Farmers

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Cattle on the Plains

  • Spanish first brought cattle to Texas-1500s
  • Developed into longhorns
  • Texas settlers rounded them up and started ranches
  • Demand for beef was high in East and North
  • Texas had no railroads linking to Eastern cities
  • To reach railroad - long drive

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Cowhands

  • Cattle-driving hard work
  • Many dangers
    • Storms
    • Rustlers
    • Stampedes
  • Many Civil War veterans
  • Native Americans
  • African Americans
  • Vaqueros
    • Expert riders and ropers
    • Branding

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Cattle Kingdom Ends

  • 1860s-1880s - 5 million cattle moved on long drive
  • Many ranchers became rich
  • Overgrazed land, expanded supply, loss of grazing land
  • Fencing of property
  • Prices fell, expenses rose

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Farmers Settle the Plains

  • Began settling in late 1860s
  • Early pioneers did not think Plains good for farming - Great Desert
  • Came because of railroads, free land, new technology
  • Homestead Act - 1862
    • 160 acres - $10 and 5 years
    • Married women could not claim
    • Single women, widowed could
    • 12% were women
    • African Americans looking for opportunities and escaping segregation and violence
    • By 1881 more than 40,00 in Kansas
    • Immigrants

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Great Plains - continued

  • Some bought their land from railroads
  • Land speculators
  • Cheap land, independence, easy profits lured thousands
  • Life was hard
  • Few trees - limited lumber
  • Soddies
  • Extreme climate
    • Flooding
    • Drought
    • Brush Fires
    • Grasshoppers
    • Wind, snow
  • Whole family pitched in

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New Farming Methods

  • Farmers had to adapt to environment - called sodbusters
  • Dry farming - trapped limited moisture in soil - plowing after rainfall, deep wells, windmills
  • Steel plow to cut through layers of sod
  • Winter wheat
  • Barbed wire fences- new invention
  • Many farmers could not make a living

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The Oklahoma Land Rush

  • 1880s - Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma remained closed to settlers
  • Government agreed to open unassigned lands to settlers
  • April 22, 1889 - 10,000 people lined up
  • Some people had slipped in ahead of time - Sooners
  • Last chapter of westward expansion

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19.2 Quiz

What was most of the silver found in rich mineral ores under the earth called?

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  1. Booms
  2. Gold dust
  3. Lodes
  4. Gold pebbles

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19.2 Quiz

In boomtowns, what were people called who practiced their own brand of justice without the benefit of a judge?

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  • bandits
  • busters
  • vaqueros
  • vigilantes

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19.2 Quiz

When “booms” were followed by “busts,” what did boomtowns become?

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  • Bust towns
  • Dead towns
  • Dusty towns
  • Ghost towns

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19.2 Quiz

Which kinds of government financial aid and land grants paid for railroad construction?

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  • Loans from boomtowns
  • Gold subsidies
  • Discounts
  • Subsidies

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19.2 Quiz

When the transcontinental railroad was finally completed, where did the two sets of tracks meet?

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  • Ft. Collins, Colorado
  • Promontory Summit, Utah
  • Salt Lake City, Utah
  • Twin Falls, Idaho