Chapter 15 Section 3 Notes
Vocab
1. Vigilante: __self-appointed___________law enforcers who punished lawbreakers.
2. Transcontinental railroad: A rail link between the _____East_______ and the
____west________ in order to transport goods across the country.
3. Land Grant: Money _______loaned________ by the Federal government in order to
support the construction of the transcontinental railroad by giving farmers long
stretches of land.
4. Open-Range system: Property that was ____not______ __fenced_________ in that
allowed cattle and livestock to roam freely.
5. Homestead Act: The government offered ___land______ plots of 160 acres to anyone
willing to live on the land for ___5_____ years, dig a well and build a road.
6. Exoduster: An organized group of ___Black_______ Americans who believed that
Kansas and Oklahoma to be their “____promised_______ ______land_______”; shaping
their identity after the story of Moses in the Bible.
Please write the key points about the following terms and events.
MINERS HOPE TO STRIKE IT RICH…

1st the discovery of ___gold_______ and ___silver__ fueled the huge desire to go west.
THE WILD-NESS OF THE WEST…

Many of these mining towns (like the railroads) lived and died according to the
veins of minerals.

____Big______ ____business__________ eventually took over mining.

________Water___________ became a HUGE problem and was constantly being fought
over.
RAILROADERS OPEN THE WEST…

2 Major Private Railroad
o ____Central_____________ _____Pacific_____________ (Sacramento, CA  East.)
o ____Union_____________ __Pacific________________ (Omaha, NE  West)
o The 2 rails met and connected in Promontory, UT in 1869.
o West growth helped territories meet the standards for statehood.

At least ___60,000_______________ inhabitants.

10 territories met those standards.
THE CATTLE KINGDOM…

Cattle ____Ranching_________ were another cause of Western boom.
o Western cowboys came into existence because of “___Mexican______
____Vaqueros_______”.

What destroyed the Open-range System?
o 1.) Creation of __Barbed-wire_____
o 2.) The supply of beef ___exceeded_______ demand.
o 3.) ___Mother_______ ___Nature______ (droughts, extreme weather, starvation,
etc.)
o 4.) Ranchers started raising __Hay___________ to feed their stock instead.
DIVERSITY AND DISCRIMINATION…

The multiple ___languages_______, ___food________, ____religion_______ and
___culture______ bred distrust in each other.
CLOSING THE FRONTIER…

1890, the US took its _____census______ and concluded that now there was no longer
a sq. mile that did not have at least a few white settlers.
Reflection: (Answer the following reflection question.)
 Describe what you believe a traveler might encounter and see if they were traveling
to the American frontier prior to 1890.