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 Territory, 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, 1860-1880
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 & 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
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!”
Plains cultivated acreage rises
1920s,
acreage grows again
Poor farming methods: deep tilling; bare soil in winter
1930s:
record drought
Up to 75% of topsoil blows away
One
of the worst environmental disasters in history