Vocab 1
Land where cattle roam freely
Open Range
Graze
To eat grass, crops, and other plants in a field
What is one form of precipitation that they would see in the West?
Rain, snow, hail, sleet
Who said "Go west young man.."
Horace Greeley
Where did the Union and Central Pacific Railroad meet?
Promontory Point, Utah
system of buying now and paying later
Credit
Brand
To mark with a symbol of ownership
Why did cowboys drive their cattle to Abilene, Kansas?
To ship them by railroad to markets in the East
What caused the worst damage to crops?
Grasshoppers
What does a census measure?
Treaty
A formal agreement between two or more groups/countries
A rock from which metal can be obtained
Ore
Why was "vigilante justice" created?
Lack of police
Who helped build the railroads?
Immigrants
What was Seward's Folly?
the purchase of Alaska
Transcontinental
across a continent
To declare ownership of something such as land
"Stake a claim"
What was the biggest danger of the long drive?
Stampede
What people did the Homestead Act of 1862 give land to?
U.S. Citizens and Immigrants
Three inventions that helped people farm the plains?
1. Barbed Wire
2. Steel Plows
3. Dry Farming
Home and land surrounding it
Homestead
Swarm
To gather or move together in a large group
Who was most likely to strike it rich on the mining frontier?
Large mining companies
3 reasons why the age of the cowboy ended...
1. Two cold winters, and hot summers (ranchers pen cattle)
2. Moved North to be closer to RR
3. Farmers took up land
3 reasons to move to the Great Plains
1. increase in amount of rainfall (temporary)
2. free land through Homestead Act
3. RR sold cheap land