It is one of the ironies of history that the “old west” was actually the last area of the north American continent to be settled. By 1860, for example, San Francisco, California was a booming city of 56,802 persons making it the 15th largest city in the nation (San Francisco Population). Kansas City, meanwhile, had a population of 4,418 (U.S. Census Bureau). Denver, Colorado was already the “Queen City of the Plains” with a population of 4,749 (Population of Denver, CO). These three communities are important since Denver and Kansas City represent the western and eastern borders of the “Great American Desert” as the high plains were known (History on the Net Staff) and San Francisco demonstrates that the west coast was already pretty densely populated. The “old west” was, then, in many ways, the “new west.”
This is, of course, the “west” of Marshall Dillon keeping the peace in Dodge City or Rowdy Yates driving the herd to the trail head. While this era captured the imaginations of Americans as well as people around the world, it was a brief moment in even the relatively brief history of the United States. A glance at the map developed by WGBH as part of its educational program (Westward Expansion 1860-1890) shows “improved agricultural land” as a fairly dense pattern from the Atlantic to the 100th meridian and then again in a strip along the Pacific coast. Between are the western mountains and the great American desert with only a few dots of improved agricultural land equating, roughly, to Denver and a few spots in Texas.
The “old west,” or the “great American desert,” or the “high plains” presented wholly new challenges to the descendents of forest dwelling Europeans who made up the bulk of the population that had settled as far west as they had. Most obviously, the trees that they were used to using as building materials, raw materials for other manufacturing such as furniture, and fuel were simply not there. Rather, vast seas of prairie grass predominated.
The 100th meridian marks a boundary (Nixon). To the east is familiar territory where forests must be cleared to open up land for agriculture. To the west is open expanse literally as far as the eye can see. Not only was the geography unfamiliar, it was actively hostile. No rivers ran making water available. The very earth itself resisted traditional wooden or cast iron plows. The classic hog-corn economy would be impossible in this hostile land (Food in Hoosier History). Settlers could not just turn hogs out to let nature take its course and the hogs multiply later to be herded in for fattening on corn. There was nothing for the hogs to eat.
In the face of these obstacles the high plains remained unsettled until some key inventions and innovations were developed. Also, of course, the Civil War had intervened and all efforts were devoted to that until the later part of the 1860s. A review of the WGBH map shows essentially no change in acres of cultivated land between 1860 and 1870. But by 1880 the shift is dramatic. Moving from the east is a great mass of green signifying “developed” land. A sprinkling of dots in the intermountain region shows the same thing, as valleys are claimed.
Innovations began with the simple need for housing. Lacking forests from which to extract wood, settlers learned to use the thickly rooted sod to create an acceptable alternative to bricks and build their homes directly from the earth (Burns). That land still defeated the wooden or cast iron plows settlers had brought with them. It required John Deere’s steel plow to be able to cut through the thick plains soil without breaking (wood) or clogging (iron) as the older plows did (Burns).
The crops the settlers (“sodbusters”) planted had to change as well. The maize (corn) they were familiar with required too much water to succeed on the arid plains. A new, drought resistant crop was required and wheat became the primary cash crop. Actually, it required a combination of innovations to work. The plow cut deeply enough to get to water. Mechanical seed drills were needed to get the seed deep enough to find water. A mechanical reaper made it possible to harvest enough to be a true cash crop (Burns).
Wood was far too expensive to use as fuel but fortunately buffalo droppings (chips) were plentiful and when dried burned nicely. The rare wood was used sparingly, becoming window frames, door frames and roof supports. The final inventions were the wind powered water pump to keep livestock and humans supplied with water and barbed wire to protect the crops. Barbed wire was yet another development associated with the lack of wood. With very limited trees the traditional split rail fence was out of the question. Barbed wire allowed fences to keep at least some pests out of the wheat (Burns).
Cattle ranching, that staple of the movie industry, was the rough equivalent of the hog-corn economy. Cattle were brought in and turned out to pasture. The herd grew as biological imperatives took over. As the railroad slowly made its way westward the rail heads at Cheyenne and Ogallala and Ellsworth and Abilene and became the terminus of the famous long drives. Cattle from Texas were driven up the trails with names we still know, the Loving Trail and the Chisolm Trail are familiar to kids the world over, to feed citizens from San Francisco to New York.. As with so much of the “old west,” this was a short lived period made more famous in dime novels and movies. The first of the long drives were made shortly after the Civil War and the last of them were made in 1886, no longer necessary as the railroad expanded.
In conclusion, the “old west” was a brief period in American history that has achieved fame out of proportion to its importance. By 1890 all but four of the continental United States were in the union. The WGBH Westward Expansion 1860-1890 map covers this final burst of expansion almost perfectly. In 1860 the stretch from Kansas City to San Francisco was traveled by horse. By 1870 the first transcontinental railroad allowed travel to the coast in weeks rather than months. By 1890 a fine grained network of railroads were feeding a growing population that was filling the high plains. The cash crop of wheat was providing raw material to mills across the nation and Kansas wheat could be found in bread on any table in America.
The “old west” may have been a brief period in American history, but it also marked a critical end. Frederick Jackson Turner developed his “frontier thesis” to explain the unique American culture. For Turner, the American experience was identified by vast expanses of land to be conquered. By 1893 he lamented the fact that when the Census Bureau announced that all land within the United States had been claimed a crucial and formative era in American history was over and Turner wondered how that unique American culture could continue to develop (Frederick Jackson Turner’s “Frontier Thesis”).
References
Burns, D. (2016). Settling the Great Plains: Inventions and Adaptations. Virginia Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.fasttrackteaching.com/ffap/Unit_2_Westward/U2_adaptations_inventions_plains.html
Food in Hoosier History. (6 April 2010). Indiana Humanities. Retrieved from http://indianahumanities.org/food-in-hoosier-history
Frederick Jackson Turner’s Frontier Thesis. (12 July 1894). The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Retrieved from https://gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/development-west/timeline-terms/frederick-jackon-turners-frontier-thesis-0
Haygood, T. (2006). The History of Cattle Drives. Genealogy Trails. Retrieved from http://genealogytrails.com/tex/state/cattledrives.html
History on the Net Staff. (2014). American West – The Great American Desert. History on the Net. Retrieved from http://www.historyonthenet.com/american_west/great_american_desert.htm
Nixon, L. (3 November 2011). At the 100th Meridian: Where the Great Plains Begin. Capital Journal. Retrieved from http://www.capjournal.com/opinions/from_the_editor/at-the-th-meridian-where-the-great-plains-begin/article_cb696c32-0652-11e1-98b0-001cc4c03286.html
Population of Denver, CO. (2016). Population.us. Retrieved from http://population.us/co/denver/
San Francisco Population. (2017). San Francisco History. Retrieved from http://www.sfgenealogy.com/sf/history/hgpop.htm
Kansas City Population. (2017). U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved from http://www2.census.gov/library/publications/decennial/1860/population/1860a-23.pdf
Westward Expansion 1860-1890. (2010). WGBH Educational Foundation. Retrieved from http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/asset/akh10_int_expansion/
