At the close of the Civil War, Texas was only sparsely settled and large parts of Oklahoma and Kansas were designated as Indian lands. The vast and empty loneliness of Nebraska, the Dakotas, the Rocky Mountains, and beyond seemed remote and forbidding. For these areas to be developed, the government had to promote settlement and provide transportation that would allow movement of people and goods in a less arduous, dangerous, time-consuming, and expensive manner than by wagon.
The first phase of the government’s plan for settlement was building the Transcontinental Railroad. The railroad provided a way to bring settlers and manufactured goods west and ship their agricultural and mining produce east. The Transcontinental Railroad was an essential artery for rapid development of the frontier.
The second phase of the government’s plan was a liberal land distribution policy that made it possible for many people to homestead. With these two key elements—transportation and cheap land—the government rapidly achieved its goal of persuading people to move west, settle on farms, and push back the frontier.
The West saw remarkable population growth in the 1870s and 1880s, though this growth was by no means evenly spread across the western lands. Though we often think of the West as a large, homogenous region, in reality it was as diverse in history, culture, and development as the eastern half of the United States. Foreign-born immigrants accounted for half the settlers in the west, making it a remarkably diverse group.
The first settlers in the west were the Spanish in New Mexico and California. Though New Mexico remained relatively sparsely populated, California grew rapidly throughout the nineteenth century. San Francisco was the urban heart of California. By 1880, it had become the economic hub of the entire Pacific Coast with a diverse Hispanic, Anglo, and Asian population of a quarter million.
From the California coast, settlement proceeded east through the valleys and passes of the coastal ranges and into the high, arid region west of the Rocky Mountains. Initial settlement of the Far West was often for mining, but was then followed by pioneers interested in timber, ranching, and farming.
Settlement on the Great Plains was by people from equally varied backgrounds. Canadians migrated southward and Mexicans northward to homestead, while Germans, Irish, and Scandinavians settled in enclaves that developed into towns and areas of distinct cultural imprint. At the same time, as many as a quarter million blacks left the Old South and moved west in search of opportunity and a more egalitarian society. Americans from the east headed west in record numbers to seek a new start, while immigrant settlers from nearly every country of Europe, the Near East, and Asia were represented among the people who came to live, work, and raise their families on the American frontier.
By 1900, 14 new states were organized from the western territories. Colorado was admitted to the Union in 1876 following the Pikes Peak Gold Rush. Because it achieved statehood 100 years after the United States became a nation, Colorado was called the “Centennial State.” A Republican Congress admitted in rapid succession six politically conservative states from 1889 to 1890: North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming. Utah was admitted in 1896, six years after the Mormons renounced polygamy, which had been the major objection against them.
In 1889, the federal government decided to open for settlement lands in Oklahoma that had been occupied by the Creeks and Seminoles. Before the opening date, many “Sooners” tried to sneak across the boundary to prospect for the best sites and make sure they could stake out their claims before others. Most Sooners were forcibly evicted by federal troops. At noon on April 22, 1889, a pistol shot signaled that the race of the century was on. Fifty thousand “Boomers” or “89ers” raced over the boundary to settle two million acres. By the end of the year, Oklahoma had 60,000 inhabitants and Congress made it a territory. Oklahoma became a state in 1907.
For the most part, western settlement followed a pattern. After a relatively brief pioneering phase of rough-and-ready farming or mining, the various regions of the west developed rapidly as entrepreneurs arrived in the boomtowns to conduct trade and provide the services and financial institutions necessary to sustain a community. With the motivation, the people, and a plan, western settlement that had been predicted to take centuries was accomplished in decades.