The West
Earth, Wind, and Fire
Nature and History in America
The Spanish
Spanish & the environment
Little
impact in Texas
Spanish & the environment
New
Mexico
Transformation of Indian life
Sheep, weaving, new crops
Spanish land grants: the ranch
Grassland to sagebrush and creosote bush
California: widespread transformation
Missions:
Indians decimated
Sheep, grapes, olives, orchards, wheat
Land
grants: ranches and ecology
Russians
Down
the coast from Alaska to California
Following
furbearing sea mammals
Virtual extinction of otter
Gold and Silver Rush
Hydraulic Mining
Washing away of mountain topsoil
Floods
in spring
Silt
and boulders in farmers’ fields
Hydraulic mining, Wardner,
Idaho
Malakoff Mine, California
Watkins, Nevada County,
1871
Dams for the dry months
Flumes to deliver water
Mining debris floods towns
& farms
Smelters
Homestake gold mines &
mills, Lead City, Dakota Terr., 1899
Tailings
Mercury, arsenic, salt,
toxic minerals
Timber needs
The Great Plains
Halt
to westward expansion, 1850s
Water
Transportation
Fencing
Indians
Buffalo
Opening the West to settlement
The
sad, bloody business of Indian war
Migrants to Oregon and to California &
Colorado goldfields
Use and destroy resources Indians need
Ambitious politicians attack peaceful Indians
Many broken treaties
Indians fight back desperately but futilely
Crescendo
of violence, 1860-1890
Rising
market in buffalo hides
Hunters methodically wipe out the buffalo
The decade of cattle drives
Large
herds of cattle in Texas after Civil War
Railheads
push west
Abilene, Kansas, 1867
Then Wichita and Dodge City
Cattle
driven up the plains
Shipped
to Chicago packing plants
Stockyards
Technology brings the farmer
Barbed
wire solves the wood problem, 1874
Windmills
solve the water problem
Railroads
solve the transportation problem
“Rain follows the plow,”
1880s
First Harvest
Farming the Plains
New
technology for wide open spaces
New plows for sticky prairie soils
Riding plows
Mowing machines
Reapers & twin binders
1880: the combine
Need for migrant workers
Farm as factory
Harvest, Dalrymple farm,
Dakota Territory
Steam tractor, South Dakota
Threshing with steam,
Kansas, 1921
30-horse combine, Moro,
Oregon, 1903
Dust Bowl
World
War I: “Wheat Will Win the War!”
Jump in acreage of Plains cultivated
Acreage
continues to expand in 1920s
Poor farming methods: deep tilling; bare soil in
winter
1930s:
record drought
Millions of tons of fine soils of Plains blows
away
Up to 75% of topsoil gone
Dust reaches eastern cities and ships in the
Atlantic
One
of the worst environmental disasters in history