In what ways did three of the following affect the development of the West: Barbed Wire, Railroads, McCormick Reaper, and the End of the Indian Wars?

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The West is a very big part of American culture, and while the myth of the West is much more enticing than the reality of the west, it is no doubt a very big part of America. We’re constantly growing up playing games surrounded by the West such as cowboys and Indians and we’re watching movies that depict the cowboy to be a romanticized hero who constantly saves dames in saloons and rides off into the sunset. However, the characters of the West weren’t the only things that helped the development of America; many inventions were a part of the development of the West and helped it flourish into a thriving community. Barbed wire, the McCormick reaper and railroads—for example—were a large part of the development in the West—from helping to define claimed land boundaries, agricultural development and competition, and even growth of the West. Claimed land boundaries could only be distinguished from open range by the people that owned the claimed land for quite a while. This would obviously become controversial when one person claimed that they owned this land for so many years, and then another settler decides that they claimed the land first. The invention of barbed wire helped to end the disputes over land by defining claimed land boundaries with fences topped with the sharp, twisted wire. While the invention of fencing brought an end to the idea of an open range for cattle drivers and the romanticized cowboys of the West, it also helped farmers and ranchers define the area of their land. Before the invention of barbed wire, people were forced to use shrubs and other types of plants that could define their land—with the lack of trees on the open plains, it was hard to find raw material to create an actual fence to claim their land. Ba... ... middle of paper ... ...s well as an export station. Railroads helped connect the West and make it less lonely than first impression would show. While the West was shaped by many influencing factors, ranging from the characters that came from the West and the inventions that were created to help the development of the West. Among those inventions, barbed wire, the McCormick Reaper, and railroads all played a significant part in the West’s development. Without these three inventions, controlled environments for ranchers and farmers may have been taken down a different route without barbed wire, agricultural development may have taken several more years to advance to where it is today without the McCormick reaper, connections in the West may have taken years to establish without the railroads. Needless to say, these three inventions were definitely a crucial part of development in the West.

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