Vocabulary
Early settlers
Pioneer
What did the transcontinental train help develop?
West
om 1862, new settlers would receive 160 acres of land for a small fee of $18
Homestead Act
Nickname for Homesteaders, they were settlers on the prairie
Sod Busters
Many of the workers on the railroad were immigrants from what country?
China
The belief that the U.S. should keep expanding west to the Pacific Ocean
Manifest Destiny
What animal did railroads commonly transport from the west to the east?
Cattle
People who received the 160 acres who had to have a house built in six months to keep their land
Homesteaders
Name two of the six states that became a state between 1861 and 1907.
Kansas, Nebraska, Colorado, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Oklahoma
What is the name of the special pants cowboys wear to protect their legs while riding?
Chaps
A railroad that stretched across the country
Transcontinental Railroad
What did factories in the east need from the west
Raw Materials/Resources
long periods without rain
drought
Why would pioneers in the West want to build their sod houses near a hill?
Protect from weather
What physical land feature made traveling out west difficult?
Rocky Mountains
In 1849 when people went to California to get rich
Gold Rush
Where did the first transcontinental railroad meet?
Promontory Point
directs water from a source to a place that needs it
Irrigation
Name of the famous painting by John Gast that was about Manifest Destiny.
American Progress
What city were cattle often taken to for sale in the east?
Chicago
Guiding herds of cattle from one point to another
Cattle Drive
A famous African American cowboy
Nat Love
method used where moisture is conserved in the soil during a dry season
Dry Farming
What did John Glidden event that helped ranchers in the west?
Barbed Wire
Why did they need to invent a new kind of plow for the west?
Soil in the west was much richer and heavier than the east, and the plows did not work there.