WESTERN TOWNS

HOMESTEAD ACT

• "...any person... shall be entitled to enter one quarter section or a less quantity of unappropriated public lands...

FACTS ABOUT THE HOMESTEAD ACT

• Signed into law in May of 1862.
• Applied to all Americans, including freed slaves.
• Allowed people to put in a claim for up to 160 acres of Western, federal land.
• 1.6 million individual claims were eventually approved.
• 420,000 square miles of claimed land.

HOMESTEAD ACT, CONT.

• The final Homestead Act claim was approved in 1988.
• This means that the Homestead act was in place for over 100 years.
• Small homesteads were eventually replaced by large farms.
• 10% of the USA was given away under this act.
• Homesteaders had to pay an $18 filing fee and live on their claimed land for 5 years.

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COWBOYS AND CATTLE DRIVES

• There were many trails dedicated to driving cattle, including the Chisholm Trail, the Goodnight-Loving Trail, and the Great Western Trail.
• A typical drive contained about 3,500 head of cattle.
• About 18 cowboys were required to drive this much cattle.
• A horse wrangler was also needed to take care of the cowboy's horses.
• Cattle stampedes were often the most dangerous part of a cowboy's job.

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LITTLE BIGHORN AND WOUNDED KNEE

• The Fort Laramie treaty, signed in 1868, was supposed to bring peace between the US and the Lakota Indians.
• The treaty was violated by Custer and his troops, who went searching for gold in sacred Indian lands.
• This caused the loss at the Battle of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.
• Wounded Knee began when the Indians returned to their reservation, intending to surrender, but actually causing a scuffle to break out.
• US Soldiers heard a shot and started firing, killing almost 300 Native American men, women, and children.

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TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD

• The 2 companies in charge of the railroad were the Union Pacific Railroad and the Central Pacific Railroad.
• Most of the workers were either immigrants from China or Ireland, or Civil War veterans.
• The Railroad was finished and opened on May 10, 1869.
• The railroad made it much easier to transport goods across the country.
• The Transcontinental was also known as the Pacific Railroad and, later, the Overland Route.

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Cyrus McCormick's mechanical reaper

Eli Whitney's cotton gin

Town saloon exterior

Town saloon interior

Town hotel

Wild west bank

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SOURCES

• Text of the Homestead Act
• history.com
• tripsintohistory.com
• amhistory.si.edu
• historynet.com