1860's Western Expansion Essay

During the years 0f 1860’s to 1890’s the U.S experience the western expansion in major
cities. While changes and expansion of the cities where the major event during this time the U.S
was experiencing changes in many other areas, population railroads and industrial and
urbanization was also expanding in the major cities. In this “think piece” assignment I would like
to cover the western expansion that brought many changes to this country, and through research I
want it to determine those changes to gather a better understanding of our history.
One of the main reason the western expansion in the U.S during the earlies 1860 was the expansion on the railroads because of the transcontinental railroad which began earlier than the 1860 but

because of the different wars in U.S territories was a very slow process. Once the wars came to an end the western expansion and the expansion of the major cities began the expansion process again this time even stronger and faster.

In the early 1860 there were only nine major cities with New York and Philadelphia with the bigger population. Boston, Brooklyn, Baltimore, Chicago, New Orleans, Cincinnati and St Louis being cities that were in the process of expansion as well. In 1862 the government pass the first Pacific Railroad Act which allowed the government to give bonds, lands and grants to the Union Pacific and the Central Pacific Railroads company. During this time on the expansion both the Pacific and the Central railroad suffered a shortage on personnel due to the Civil War and slow down the process of expansion. The continuation of the western expansion was based on all the immigrants from Asia and other Irish immigrants. On the completion of the railroad on May 10, 1869, the immigrants and the population grew on all these major cities. This railroad connected the Pacific and the Central part of the U.S opening new land in the late

1860’s. This open the doors for the Homestead Act to provide land for individuals that were ready to work on the land, they had to build, improve the land and live in it for five years to be able to claim the patent or tittle. On May 10, 1869, the first transcontinental railroad is completed when the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads join their tracks at Promontory Point, Utah. The railroad rapidly affects the ease of western settlement, shortening the journey from coast to coast, which took six to eight months by wagon, to a mere one week's trip.
In the earlies 1870’s the Railroad companies begin to the process of advertising the campaigns of expansion to attract settlers to their land grants in the West, the advertisement campaign spread all the way to Europe to distribute handbills, posters and pamphlets that tout the rich soil and favorable climate of the region.

But the land that was being advertise was too expensive and didn’t pay enough taxes because of their location, once the major cities began to grow more settlers and more immigrants began to show up to buy land. In mid-1870’s the Sioux tribe killed Colonel George Armstrong Custer and his men during the battle of the Little Bighorn because they want it to control the white Great Plains and place the Indians in reservations. In 1876, Colorado became the 38th state to join the Union when President Ulysses Grant signed a proclamation of statehood. By the end of the 1870 other major cities began their expansion, Buffalo, Newark, Washington DC and San Francisco all thanks to the expansion on the railroads. All the change and all these expansions where creating more problems and dilemmas everywhere with the Indians the US Army the immigrants and the corruption on the government. In the 1880 the cities of Milwaukee, Detroit, Providence and Jersey City began to gain population, New York City continue with its expansion and continue to grow as one of the biggest cities during the westward expansion era. The Chinese immigrants where the major force behind the

expansion and in the 1880 the president sign the Chinese Exclusion Treaty, which put a number on how many Chinese immigrants could come to the US and a number on how many would be allowed to become citizens, canceling the open-door policy that was set in the late 1960’s. During the 1883 the Northern Pacific Railroad, connecting the northwestern states to points east, is finally completed, after a 19-year struggle against treacherous terrain and many problems with the financing of the railroad. The crews that work on the railroad build a 3,850-foot tunnel through solid granite and construct an 1,800-foot frame for the railroad. When the railroad was completed, the round trip to the Columbia River that took Lewis and Clark two-and-a-half years in 1803 now takes just nine days. This make it a lot easier for all the cities and land to continue with the expansion and the progress, every land owner was building and improving their own land.
In 1887 California became one of the major points of expansion with competing rail lines and the inducements of eager land speculators bringing immigrants and newcomers to Los Angeles by the trainload; 120,000 arrive that year, searching the promise of pure air, warm sunshine and prosperity. The city was rapidly being transformed and the locals known as the Californios that have lived there for more than a century are suddenly view as strangers in their own land. At the end of the 1880’s the Dakotas and Montana became part of the Union contributing to the expansion of the U.S more cities, more work and more prosperity for all the citizens, immigrants and even the Indians which the government was trying to give citizenship if they accept terms of the Dawes Severalty Act.
During the 1990’s the cities of Rochester, Denver, Omaha, St Paul, Kansas City and Minneapolis grew on population and began the process of expansion. In the earlies 1890’s Wyoming enters the union, taking part in the government expansion and the major cities. In the early 1890’s the Congress approved the Forest Reserve Act which protect public forest in any state and eventually placing more land in the hands of the federal government. This resulted in a change of federal priority from selling to managing for conservation and development. In the mid-1890 the Carey Act granted over one million acres to the arid state, the stipulations where they needed to provide a system of irrigation and sell the land to settlers, but this act was unsuccessful because it will take more than that to finance a proper irrigation system. The arid or dry state where the ones holding the process of expansion and the continuous problem with the Indians that didn’t want to give up their land. In the late 1990’s the state of Utah enters the union and the US government add Hawaii to the US territories.
The westward expansion brought a lot of war’s, battles and crimes and the murder and massacre of many people to the US, the government became corrupt and the high-class individuals desire more and more of the profit they were gaining from all the expansion. The cost of living start getting high and the living conditions of the poor class began to deteriorate. The US was a great place to make businesses and to settle and make a living but it was hard time during these years of expansi