Listen to the section using the player below.

How Did Mining Change the West?

The western mining boom had begun with the California gold rush of 1849. When the gold rush ended, miners looked for new opportunities. A mere rumor sent them ­racing east or north in search of new strikes.

The Comstock Lode

Two prospectors struck gold in Nevada in 1859. Then another miner, Henry Comstock, appeared. “The land is mine,” he cried, demanding to be made a partner. From then on, Comstock boasted about “his” mine. The strike became known as the Comstock Lode. A lode is a rich vein of gold or silver.

Comstock and his partners often complained about the heavy blue sand that was mixed in with the gold. It clogged the devices used for separating out the gold and made the gold hard to reach. When Mexican miners took the “danged blue stuff” to an expert in California, tests showed that it was loaded with silver. Comstock had stumbled onto one of the richest silver mines in the world.

Miners moved into many other areas of the West. Some found valuable ore in Montana and Idaho. Others struck it rich in Colorado. In the 1870s, miners discovered gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota. In the late 1890s, thousands rushed north to Alaska after major gold strikes were made there.

Analyze Images Virginia City, Nevada, became a boomtown due to mining activities from the Comstock Lode.

Identify Cause and Effect How did silver and gold rushes affect settlement of the West?

Boomtowns and Ghost Towns

Gold and silver strikes attracted thousands of prospectors. Towns sprang up almost overnight near all the major mining sites.

First, miners built a tent city near the diggings. Then, traders brought mule teams loaded with tools, food, and clothing. Merchants hauled in wagon-loads of supplies and set up stores.

Soon, wood-frame houses, hotels, restaurants, and stores replaced the tents. In less than a year, the Comstock Lode mining camp became the boomtown of Virginia City, Nevada.

Most settlers in the boomtowns of the mining frontier were men. However, enterprising women also found ways to profit. Some women ran boardinghouses and laundries. Others opened restaurants, where miners gladly paid high prices for home-cooked meals.

Many boomtowns lasted for only a few years. When the gold or ­silver ore was gone, the miners moved away. Without the miners for customers, businesses often had to close. In this way, a boomtown could quickly go bust and turn into a ghost town.

Some boomtowns survived and prospered after the mines shut down, as miners stayed and found new ways to make a living.

READING CHECK

Identify Main Ideas Why did boomtowns spring up throughout the West?

Railroads Encourage Economic Growth

To many American Indians, the railroad was a terrifying monster, an “iron horse” belching black smoke and moving at stunning speeds. However, for the people of mining towns, railroads meant supplies, new townsfolk, and a rapid means of transporting their gold and silver.

The West needed a transportation system that could carry heavy loads over great distances at a cost low enough to guarantee a profit. It is no wonder, then, that railroad companies raced to lay track to the mines and boomtowns. In time, the new technology of railroad transport opened the West and fostered economic growth for the nation.

Government Support

In 1863, two companies began a race to build the first transcontinental railroad. A transcontinental railroad is one that stretches across a continent from coast to coast. The Union Pacific Railroad started building a rail line westward from Omaha, Nebraska. The Central Pacific Railroad began in Sacramento, California, and was built eastward.

The market revolution that had begun in the first half of the 1830s relied on capitalists willing to invest in industry. Capitalists backed the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific railroads. However, those private companies also relied on government aid. The coming years would see increasing government support for industries involved in creating a national infrastructure.

The federal government helped the railroad companies because it believed that rail lines in the West would benefit the entire nation. The government’s aid, aimed at encouraging expansion, came in the form of subsidies.

A subsidy is financial aid or a land grant from the government. Congress lent money to the railroad companies and gave them land. For every mile of track completed, the railroad companies received 20 sections of land in the states along the route and 40 sections per mile in the territories. By the time the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads were completed, they had received about 45 million acres of land. Often, both business and government ignored the fact that American Indians lived on the land.

Analyze Images This wooden trestle, the Dale Creek Bridge in Wyoming, was a great challenge for railroad engineers.

Use Visual Information What were some of the challenges that this bridge presented?

Building the Transcontinental Railroad

Both companies had trouble getting workers. Labor was scarce during the Civil War. Also, the work was backbreaking and dangerous, and the pay was low.

The railroad companies hired immigrant workers, who accepted low wages. The Central Pacific brought in thousands of workers from China. The Union Pacific hired newcomers from Ireland. African Americans and Mexican Americans also worked for each line.

The railroad workers faced a daunting task. The route would pass through environments as varied as forests, deserts, and mountains. Building the railroad forced workers to adapt to or modify the landscape. In some places, track was laid around mountains. In other places, however, workers relied on specialized tools, explosives, and other technological innovations to blast tunnels through mountains.

The Central Pacific had to carve a path across the rugged Sierra Nevada. The Union Pacific had to cut through the towering Rocky Mountains. Snowstorms and avalanches killed workers and slowed progress. At times, crews cutting tunnels through rock advanced only a few inches a day.

Analyze Images Even though the pay was low, workers like these on the Union Pacific took on the dangerous task of building the railroad.

Infer What do you think these workers would have written in a letter to people back home?

Railroads Encourage Urban and Rural Growth

The Central Pacific and Union Pacific met at Promontory, Utah, on May 10, 1869. Leland Stanford, president of the Central Pacific, dropped a solid-gold spike into a pre-drilled hole in the rail. In doing so, he joined the two tracks and united the country. The nation’s first transcontinental railroad was complete.

With the Civil War fresh in their minds, people cheered this new symbol of unity. The words that were engraved on the golden spike expressed their feelings:

Primary Source

“May God continue the unity of our Country as the Railroad unites the two great Oceans of the world.”

—Engraved on the Golden Spike

Before long, other major rail lines linked the West and the East. The railroads brought economic growth and new settlement all across the West. They enabled people, supplies, and mail to move quickly and cheaply across the plains and mountains. Wherever rail lines went, settlements—“railroad towns”—sprang up along the tracks.

Larger towns and cities developed where major railroad lines met. Cities where sea and land transportation met, such as Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, experienced huge population growth with the coming of the railroads. Western cities, such as Denver, Cheyenne, and Wichita, grew when railroads were joined to the great cattle trails. Thus the railroad—the most advanced transportation system of its day—had a major impact on the urbanization of the United States.

Because of their rapid growth, western territories began to apply for statehood. Nevada became a state in 1864; Colorado, in 1876; North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington, in 1889; Idaho and Wyoming, in 1890.

READING CHECK

Summarize Why were immigrants brought in to help build the railroads?

How Did Railroads Deal With Competition?

With builders rushing to share in the profits of the railroad boom, overbuilding occurred. Soon, there were too many rail lines in some parts of the country. Between Atlanta and St. Louis, for example, 20 different lines competed for business. There was not nearly enough rail traffic to keep all these lines busy.

Owners Look for New Ways to Make Profits

Especially in the West, there were too few people—and therefore not enough paying customers—for the railroads to make a profit. Competition was fierce. Rate wars broke out as rival railroads slashed their fares to win customers. Usually, all the companies lost money as a result.

Often, railroads were forced to grant secret rebates, or discounts, to their biggest customers. The railroads preferred big customers for two reasons. First, big customers were more likely to pay their bills and keep being customers in the future. Second, it was less expensive to deal with a few big customers than many small customers.

Fewer customers meant less paperwork and simpler loading and unloading. Yet rebates hurt small shippers and drove some out of business.

Railroad owners soon realized that cutthroat competition was hurting even their large lines. They looked for ways to end the competition. One method was pooling. In a pool, railroad companies divided up the business in an area. They then fixed their prices at a high level.

Analyze Political Cartoons Cornelius Vanderbilt, left, seldom failed when he tried to take over other railroads, but this image from 1870 depicts his loss to Daniel Drew for control of the Erie Railway Company.

Infer Who do you think the cartoonist felt was the underdog in this battle?

Farmers React to High Railroad Prices

Railroad rebates and pools angered small farmers in the South and the West. Both practices kept shipping prices high for them. Rates were so high that some farmers burned their crops for fuel rather than ship them to market.

Many farmers joined the Populist movement. Populists called for government regulation of rail rates. Some wanted the government to run the railroads. A debate began about whether government should interfere with business to protect the common good. Congress and several states passed laws regulating railroad companies. However, the laws did not end abuses. Railroad owners sometimes bribed officials to keep the laws from being enforced.

The Panic of 1893

In 1893, an economic panic hit the United States. About 15,000 businesses and 500 banks closed, leaving many workers unemployed.

The railroads were both a cause and a victim of the economic downturn. Overbuilding in the 1860s meant that many railroad companies’ finances were fragile—they were barely making money. In 1893, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad went bankrupt, helping to start the panic. Many other leading railroads followed. Industries, like steel, and a wide variety of businesses that had come to depend on the railroad were hurt, as were businesses that depended on those businesses. Through a ripple effect, the whole economy suffered.

Analyze Graphs Railroads had a profound effect on the U.S. economy.

Synthesize Visual Information Why do you think certain professions grew so rapidly during this time? What effect did the growth of the railroad industry have on the U.S. economy in the late 1800s?

READING CHECK

Summarize How did railroad owners make profits?

Lesson Check

1. What role did vigilantes play on the western mining frontier?
2. Why was solving the gauge problem the key to creating an efficient rail network?
3. Generate Explanations Why might a sudden surge of people into an area cause problems other than environmental ones?
4. Express Problems Clearly What problems did an excess of competition cause for railroad companies and some customers?
5. Summarize Tell how railroads helped the United States grow and prosper.
6. Writing Workshop: Introduce Claims Recall how and why the federal government supported the construction of railroads. Write two sentences to introduce your claim concerning what the government’s role should be in the creation of a national infrastructure. This will get you started on the argument you will write at the end of the Topic.