Chapter 18

The Western
Frontier
 1. Boomtowns grew up around mines. The
railroads were important because they helped
transport the minerals from the west to the
east.
2. Colorado and California had gold rushes.
This helped them become states.

Miner working the Comstock mine

A boomtown
3. Subsidies are government grants. The
government gave subsidies to companies to
build railroads.
4. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific competed
to build the transcontinental railroad.
5. The railroad companies created time zones so
that people could catch the trains on time.
6. Vaqueros were Spanish ranchers. Cattle ranchers
wore wide- brimmed hats and often carried lariats. They
raised longhorn cattle and went on long drives to get
them to the railroads in cow towns.
7. Farmers were nicknamed sodbusters because
they had to break through thick layers of sod to
plant crops. The railroad was important to
farmers in the west because they could send crops
east.
8.Many people moved west because of the
Homestead Act. This gave free land to people
who moved west and lived on the land for 5 years.
9. Many thousands of buffalo were killed by
men who were hired by the railroads. The
buffalo got in the way of trains. They fed the
buffalo to the workers and sold the hides for
profit.
10. Buffalo Bill created a
Traveling show called the
“Wild West Show”

Buffalo Bill claimed to have killed

4,000 buffalo in less than 18 months
11. The U.S. federal government ordered
Native Americans onto reservations.
Reservations are areas of land set aside
for Native Americans.

Native Americans were forced to live

on areas of land called Reservations
12. The government
had promised the
Black Hills of South
Dakota to the Sioux.
General George
Armstrong Custer
heard there was gold Chief Sitting Bull
there, so he and a
group of army men
went to investigate.
13. Chiefs Sitting Bull
and Crazy Horse and
their men killed
Custer and their
army. The Sioux were George Armstrong
then forced off of the Custer
14. Annie Oakley
became known as
an American
sharpshooter. She
traveled with
Buffalo Bill’s Wild
West show.
15. Sitting Bull
also traveled for a
few years with the
Wild West Show.