People
These were the people who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad.
Who were immigrants?
Because of the cheap land being offered by the railroad companies, the Homestead Act, and a temporary increase in the amount of rainfall for that particular region, settlers flocked to this geographical part of the United States.
What are the Great Plains?
This is the word that means to eat grass, crops, and other plants in a field.
What is graze?
This is the word for a rock from which metal can be extracted.
What is ore?
This is the main reason that settlers on the plains built their houses out of sod bricks.
What is the fact that there very few trees to build homes with?
He wrote the famous quote, "Go west, young man, and grow up with the country."
Who was Horace Greeley?
Ranchers in Texas had to drive their cattle north to Abilene, Kansas, for this reason.
From there, cattle could be shipped by railroad to Chicago and markets in the east.
Once again, this is the word that means a formal agreement between two or more groups, especially countries.
What is a treaty?
This was the phrase that meant that the citizens would have to handle matters on their own since many of these "boom towns" had no law enforcement.
What is vigilante justice?
This is what folks referred to as "Seward's Folly."
What was the United States' purchase of Alaska?
Two famous outlaws we read about in our history book are these men.
Who were Jesse James and Billy the Kid?
These were the three inventions that helped people on the plains farm effectively.
What are barbed wire, steel plows, and dry farming?
This is the term for land where cattle and other livestock can roam freely.
What is open range?
This is the word that means a home and the land surrounding it.
What is homestead?
We would call rain, snow, hail, and sleet all forms of this.
What is precipitation?
Not everyone who went west in search of gold struck it rich; the folks who mainly got rich were these people.
Who were the mining companies?
Harsh winters and dry summers, farmers taking up valuable grazing lands, and ranchers moving north to be closer to the railroad lines all contributed to the end of the great age of these people.
What are cowboys?
This is the term for gathering together and moving as one large unit.
What is swarm?
This is the word that means a mark that shows ownership.
What is a brand?
This is the word that means to buy something now but pay for it later.
What is credit?
This is the phrase that means to simply declare ownership of something, such as land.
What is "stake a claim?"
The Homestead Act of 1862 gave land away free to these groups of people.
Who were U.S. citizens and immigrants?
This was the greatest danger faced by cowboys on the long drive.
What are stampedes?
This is what we call the measurement of people in a population.
What is a census?
This was the cause of the worst distaster faced by farmers on the Great Plains.
What are grasshoppers?