2. Essential Questions
1. What national issues emerged in
the process of closing the
western frontier?
2. Why does the West hold such an
important place in the American
imagination?
3. In what ways is the West
romanticized in American culture?

3. Key Tensions
Native
Americans
Cattlemen
Ranchers
Buffalo Hunters
Railroads
U. S. Government
Sheep Herders
Farmers

4. Key Tensions
Ethnic
Minorities
Nativists
Environmentalists
Lawlessness of
the Frontier
Big Business Interests
[mining, timber]
Local Govt. Officials
Farmers
Buffalo Hunters
“Civilizing” Forces
[The “Romance” of the West]

6. Railroad Construction

7. “The Big Four” Railroad Magnates
Charles Crocker
Collis Huntington
Mark Hopkins
Leland Stanford

8. Promontory Point, UT
(May 10, 1869)

10. The Bronc Buster
Frederick Remington

11. Black Cowboys

13. Colt .45 Revolver
God didn’t make men equal.
Colonel Colt did!

14. Legendary Gunslingers & Train
Robbers
Jesse James
Billy the Kid

15. Dodge City Peace Commission,
1890

17. Prospecting

18. Mining Centers:
1900

19. Anaconda Copper Mining Co. (MT)

20. Mining (“Boom”) Towns-Now Ghost Towns
Calico, CA

22. The
Cattle
Trails

23. Land Use: 1880s

24. New Agricultural
Technology
Steel Plow [“Sod Buster”]
“Prairie Fan”
Water Pump

25. Barbed Wire
Joseph Glidden

26. The Range Wars
Sheep
Herders
Cattle
Ranchers

28. Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900

29. Regional Population Distribution
by Race: 1900

30. Black
“Exoduster”
Homesteader
s

31. Blacks Moving West

32. The Buffalo Soldiers on the Great
Plains

33. A Romantic View

34. The Buffalo Soldiers & the Indian Wars

35. The “Chinese Question”
 Exclusion Act (1882)
- Oriental Exclusion Act
- Chinese Exclusion Act

36. The Tong Wars: 1850s-1920s
Began in San Francisco in 1875.

37. African American & Chinese
Populations:
1880-1900

39. Frontier Settlements: 1870-1890

40. Homesteads From Public Lands

41. 1887
Land
Promotion
Poster
for the
Dakota
Territories

42. What is the Message of this Picture?

43. The Realty--A Pioneer’s Sod House,
SD

44. Rain Follows the Plow!

45. Frederick Jackson Turner
The Significance of the Frontier
in American Society (1893)

46. Newlands Reclamation Act (1902)
Francis Newlands

48. The Traditional View of the West

49. William “Buffalo Bill”
Cody’s Wild West Show

50. “Buffalo Bill” Cody & Sitting Bull

51. Legendary Female Western
Characters
Calamity Jane
Annie Oakley

52. The Fall of the Cowboy
Frederick Remington

54. Destruction of the Buffalo Herds
The near extinction of the buffalo.

55. Yellowstone National Park
First national park
established in 1872.

56. National Parks

57. Conservation Movement
John Muir
With President
Theodore Roosevelt

58. Sierra Club
Founded in 1892