13-3/13-4: Cattle Kingdoms & Farming in the West

1. 13-3/13-4: Cattle Kingdoms & Farming in the West Americans worked to find ways to deal with the cattle industry’s decline and challenging farming conditions.

2. Anticipatory Set

3. California Standards • Standard 8.12.1: Trace patterns of agricultural and industrial development as they relate to climate, use of natural resources, markets, and trade and locate such development on a map. • Standard 8.12.3: Explain how states and the federal government encouraged business expansion through tariffs, banking, land grants, and subsidies. • Standard 8.12.8: Identify the characteristics and impact of Grangerism and Populism.

4. Input • open range: unfenced lands. • cattle drive: the herding and moving of cattle over long distances. • vaquero: cowhand, or cowboy (Spanish). • cow town: settlement at the end of a cattle trail. • cattle kingdom: the region dominated by the cattle industry and its ranches, trails, and cow towns.

5. Input • homesteader: settlers who acquired free land from the government. • sod: a surface layer of earth in which the roots of grasses tangle with soil. • sodbuster: plains farmers. • sooner: a person who sneaked onto the land before the start of the Oklahoma land rush.

6. Input • grange:groups of farmers who met for lectures, sewing bees, and other events. • farm cooperative: groups of farmers who pool their money to make large purchases of tools, seeds, and other supplies. • inflation: general rise in prices. • William Jennings Bryan

7. Research Main Idea & Details Fold 2 papers into 4 sections each for notes. Write down the section heading and the main idea. You will fill in the details at the end of the lesson.

8. Input • The Rise of the Cattle Industry • The coming of railroads gave western ranchers a way to get cattle to distant markets. • In spring, cowhands would go on a cattle drive, the herding and moving of cattle over long distances, that would last two to three months. • Cattle drives followed well-worn trails such as, the Chisholm Trail from San Antonio, Texas to Abilene, Kansas

9. Input • The Rise of the Cattle Industry • Cowhands, working long hours for low pay, learned skills developed earlier by Spanish and Mexican vaqueros. • Safari Montage • Texas, Chapter 3 • Cities and Culture of Texas; Chisholm Trail •  (1 min 53 sec)

10. Input • The Wild West • The West gained an exaggerated reputation for lawlessness and violence. • In 1867, Joseph McCoy, an Illinois businessman, founded Abilene, Kansas, where the Chisholm Trail met the Kansas Pacific Railroad. It was the first cow town, or settlement at the end of a cattle trail. • Rival cow towns such as Wichita and Dodge City, Kansas, soon sprang up along rail lines. • Dance halls, saloons, hotels, and restaurants served the cowboys. • Soon, the myth of the West as a place of violence, adventure, and endless opportunity spread to the East. • Easterners called it the Wild West.

11. Input • Boom and Bust in the Cattle Kingdom • Overstocking and a spell of bad weather eventually put an end to the cattle boom. • The cattle boom lasted from the 1860s to the 1880s. • In 1886 and 1887, a cycle of scorching summers and frigid winters killed millions of cattle. • An economic depression caused a drop in demand for beef. • Giant cattle ranches slowly gave way to smaller ranches that grew their own feed. • Large roundups and long cattle drives vanished.