The Bonanza West

1. The Bonanza West Victoria Stahl

2. California Gold Rush • In 1849, individual prospectors struck gold along the Sierra Nevada • Placer mining was used to acquire gold • Placer mining- required little technology save for a shovel and a washing pan to separate gold from other ores in streams • Gold seekers were often nicknamed “forty-niners” due to the year of the start of the CA rush Forty-Niner

3. Comstock Lode • Named for Henry T.P. Comstock, a drifter who talked his way into the claim • Discovered in 1859, near Virginia City, Nevada. Produced more that $306 million between 1859 and 1879 • “The sidewalks swarmed with people…Joy sat on every countenance, and there was a glad, almost fierce, intensity in every eye, that told of the money-getting schemes that were seething in every brain and the high hope that held sway in every heart.” -Samuel Clemens

4. Black Hills Gold Rush • Lasted from 1874-1878 • An army tried to keep miners out of the black hills (Sioux hunting grounds) • Colonel George Custer was sent to disprove rumors of gold and send miners away, instead he found gold and the rush continued • Mining town Deadwood, South Dakota was formed • Martha Jane Canary “Calamity Jane” and “Wild Bill” Hickok were two famous residents of Deadwood Calamity Jane Wild Bill Hickok

5. Other Mining Info • “Instant Cities” such as Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Denver were formed • Miners flocked from strike to strike; new mining camps and towns sprang up quickly • 1860-1870-other important mining strikes in Washington, Idaho, Colorado, Montana, Arizona, and Dakota. • “The miners of Idaho were like quicksilver. A mass of them dropped in any locality, broke up into individual globules, and ran off after any atom of gold in their vicinity. They stayed nowhere longer than the gold attracted them”--Hubert Howe • Other mining towns include Virginia City, Nevada, Leadville, Colorado, Tombstone, Arizona, etc.

6. Cattle Bonanza • From 1865-1885/1886 cattle ranching dominated the Great Plains • “open range”-vast fenceless area extending from the Texas Panhandle into Canada • Vaqueros-Mexican cattle ranchers, developed techniques of branding, roundups, and roping • Jospeh G. McCoy- had the Idea of using Kansas railways as a means to ship Texas beef to eastern cities • By 1880, more than 6 Million cattle had been driven North • The last Northern cattle roundup took place in 1905

7. Farming Bonanza • Took place between 1870 and 1900 • During this time the population of the Plains states tripled • Sod Houses were common, $2.78 to build • Exodusters- a group of approx. six thousand African Americans who left their homes in Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi in 1879, seeking better lives in Kansas, where they worked as laborers or farmers • Dry Farming- farming technique developed to allow planting in the more arid parts of the West; where settlers had to deal with far less rainfall than they had east of the Mississippi. Furrows were plowed a foot or so deep and filled with dust mulch to loosen soil and slow evaporation • Bonanza Farms- huge Plains farms that covered thousands of acres of land, represented agricultural development similar to that occurring in industry

8. More Farming.. Sod House Exodusters