1. CHAPTER 18:
Americans Move West
Section 1:
Miners, Ranchers, and Railroads

2. VOCABULARY
 Frontier: An undeveloped area
 Boomtown: Western community that grew quickly
because of a mining boom and often disappeared when
the boom ended

3. MORE AMERICANS MOVE WEST
 After the
war, more people
moved west
 They came to
the frontier for
new jobs & life

4. MINING
 Comstock Lode – Huge deposit of silver
discovered in Nevada

5. MINING
 Large companies needed to mine it

6. MINING
 Very dangerous work

7. Comstock Lode miners

8. MINING
 Boomtowns sprang up near mines

9. Western Boomtown

10. Western ghost town

11. THE CATTLE KINGDOM
 Rising population in the east = greater demand for
beef
 Longhorn Cattle were raised in Texas and on the
Great Plains

12. THE CATTLE KINGDOM
 Area called the Cattle Kingdom

13. THE CATTLE KINGDOM
 Cattle drives brought the cows to market and RR’s
 Cowboys drove the cattle
along the Chisholm Trail

15. Water crossings

16. Real cowboys

17. Vaqueros

18. African American
cowboys

20. The Wild West

21. THE CATTLE KINGDOM
 Ended when farmers bought up the open range
• Used invention of barbed wire to close up land

22. THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD
 Dream
was to build
a RR that
crossed the
continent
and
connected
East to West

23. THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD
 Gov. made it a race
• Union Pacific built west
• Central Pacific built east

24. Union Pacific
Irish workers
“Hell on Wheels”

25. Central Pacific
Chinese Workers

27. THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD
 Two sides met at Promontory Point, Utah

29. The Golden Spike

30. THE TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD
 Effects of the Transcontinental Railroad
• More settlement West
• Increased business East-West
• RR companies very powerful