Thesis
The Colorado Silver Mining Boom (1879-1893) inspired a race for the right to lay railroad tracks through the Colorado Royal Gorge. Conflict between the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway turned into a violent war that created turmoil for the railroad industry and for the courts. On March 27, 1880 a compromise was forged when the Treaty of Boston ended the conflict that had helped shape the American transportation system.
The Steam Engine
The Greek inventor Hero of Alexandria invented the steam engine in the 1st century A.D. In 1698, Thomas Savery invented the modern steam engine and Thomas Watt perfected it in 1765. These innovations would be adapted in ways that changed the world.
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The first company to start building railroads was the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O). They laid down their first tracks in 1828 and the line was completed in 1830. On that track, they used Peter Cooper's steam engine train called Tom Thumb to haul passengers and goods between Baltimore and Ohio. In 1869 the Union Pacific Railroad joined B&O to make the first transcontinental railroad. Soon, networks of railroads would connect vast territories and allow industries to flourish.
Mining
Mining silver was the reason Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway were fighting over the Royal Gorge. They wanted to use the gorge to quickly reach the mining fields in Leadville, Colorado. Coal was used to run steam engines. During the industrial age demand for coal pushed mining companies to find areas to mine that were hard to access. The trains were needed to transport coal back to markets to run steam engines.
Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad
William J.
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D&RG workers decided that they were going to build ahead of the Santa Fe workers; however, Santa Fe sought court injunctions against D&RG. Soon after this both companies hired armed guards. This led to fighting in which one guard for the D&RG was shot and killed.
Dangerous Railroads
Building railroads in the West was very dangerous and had many unexpected obstacles. The West was the most unexplored region in the United States in the 1800's. Railroad construction crews feared falling rocks from dynamite and shifting boulders. The dry and hot environment was extremely hard to work in. The work was slow, tiring and involved little food and water.
People of the West
The Old West consisted of lawmen, outlaws and an overall under civilized United States. Immigrants flooded into the West looking for work and opportunities to start a new life in the United States. Many of these immigrants became gold diggers and railroad workers.
Leadville
In the late 1870's miners in the Western United States were in search of silver and lead. The town of Leadville had a silver boom and attracted the attention of two railroad companies and started a conflict between them. Leadville was a small town which was only accessible through the Royal Gorge where there was only room for one set of train
In the beginning of the 1880s, there was a new type of transportation appeared in Pacific Northwest, railroads. It marked one of the key turning points in the region's history. When railway lines were completed to and through the Pacific
The rail road and fossil fuels are the keys to Palmer’s vision for an industrialized Colorado. The increasing demand for energy from the populous tinkled up to business like Colorado Fuel and Iron Company to minimized cost. However, the side effects of bring the rail road and coal mining to the beautiful Colorado included destroying the landscape and polluting the living condition to citizens of Colorado. The growing cost of labor paved away to immigrant labor to enter into the coal mining industry instead of the experienced and more expensive colliers.
Due to the discovery of gold in California, all of the United States turned to the west, in search of wealth. Few knew it, but a railway would be needed to transport the gold from the west to the east. One man, the secretary of war, Jefferson Davis, who also in the further became the president of the secretary, realized the importance of a railroad that would connect the east and the west. Because of this realization, Mr. Davis sent out survey parties to look for railway routes to connect the east and west from the Missouri river to the Pacific Coast.
The Coal Creek War was the beginning of its own kind of wild labor strike, involving brave and strong-willed miners that weren’t backed or protected by a union. It became a true war as the miners’ careers and quality of life seemed to be diminishing and weren’t cared about or taken into consideration by the Governor. The war didn’t affect everyone from the South and there were other jobs available, including mining jobs, so was it worth the battle? The problems in Coal Creek all began in 1877 when a rise in crime and a labor dispute led to the state bringing convicts into the mine to work (Legacy).
The railroad was first designed by George Stephenson whose original idea was to use steam to run the train and make transportation faster. When the US started using railroads and trains they purchased them from the Stephen Works company from Britain. “In the 1850s a boom in railroad development across the North was changing business organization and management and reducing freight costs. Railroads were influencing a rise in real estate values, increasing regional concentrations of industry, the size of business units and stimulating growth in investment banking and agriculture.
After the civil war, the area west of the mississippi river was settled by miners, ranchers, and farmers. The west was built when ranchers and people moving Indians. The west found places to mine and they started building towns. The towns kept getting bigger but when the Americans were moving the Indians they went to Sand Creek and it lead to the sand Creek massacre in November 1864 where many women and children were killed. For years, the United States had been engaged in conflict with several Indian tribes over territory.
Transcontinental Railroad Tera Richardson, 4336787 History 102 B008 Sum 17 Professor Traci Sumner American Military University July 22, 2017 Abstract The transcontinental railroad was one of the biggest advocates for the industrial economy and westward expansion. The railroads could transfer goods and people across the country with ease, and quickly. While some bad came from this miraculous progression, such as the panic of 1873 and a yellow fever epidemic, the good outweighed the bad as it enabled the United States to fulfill its Manifest Destiny through westward expansion.
In 1862, an act was passed down called the Pacific railroad act. This act chartered the Central Pacific and the Pacific railroad companies. In addition, the Pacific railroad act tasked them to build a transcontinental railroad that would link the United States from coast to coast or east to west. It needed about 5,000 men to do this and since the chinese did the great wall of china why not make the Chinese to came to America and to build the railroad and ⅔ did. Over the next 7 years both companies would race toward each other, starting at Sacramento, California on one side and Omaha, Nebraska on the other.
In the many years of Westward Expansion there were their ups and their downs. The years of treachery and the years of political improved consisted in the Westward Expansion. From mining to the Transcontinental Railroad, the many downfalls it had had an impact on people like Native Americans. However my view of the Westward Expansion was good. Without this period in America, America would have never a giant in the world.
This added flow of jobs, occurring after in the coming of the railroad in 1886, added to the already boosting economy. Likewise, many cities also benefited from their relation to the rail lines. “Civic leaders in Tacoma and rival Seattle had long dreamed of forging direct rail connections to the outside world. They needed to create links between the farm and ranch land of eastern Washington and to the ocean shipping
The contrasts between the American West and East in the nineteenth century range from a new start to the adventure of the living in the Wild West. The east had become overcrowded and did not allow much opportunity for people of lesser wealth. “In 1893, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner gave a celebrated lecture, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in which he argued that on the western frontier the distinctive qualities of American culture were forged: individual freedom, political democracy, and economic mobility. The West, he added, acted as a “safety
The transcontinental railroad system developed after the Civil War in 1869; this was at the time of the Gilded Age. The reason why the railroads were industrialized, was to revolutionize and expanded the economic growth throughout the United States. Thus, allowing commercial goods to be delivered for a lower rate, as well as, transporting people across the country from coast to coast. During this era, Jay Gould became a railroad mogul, by monopolizing the railroads. As stated in the textbook, 'He operated in the stock market like a shark".
The Tremendous Impact of Railroads on America In the late 19th century, railroads propelled America into an era of unprecedented growth, prosperity, and convenient transportation. Prior to the building of the railroads, America lacked the proper and rapid transportation to make traveling across the country economical or practical. Lengthy travel was often cumbersome, costly, and dangerous.
In 1694, Thomas Savery invented what would revolutionize the united states indefinitely, he called it the steam engine. This invention lead to the first steam engine locomotive which many would say was a beneficial turning point in the industrialization of america’s economy,allowing the steam engine to be used on the railways. Although the railroads did impact the United States and certain groups in positive ways,there were also negative effects that occurred. During this time period, there were many chinese immigrants that entered the United States who made up most of the workers that built the tracks.
In between California and the rest of the country were the Great Plains which were not heavily populated so there was no easy way of trade and transportation to the growing western territories. A group of men called the “Big Four” which consisted of Collis Huntington, Leland Stanford, Charles Crocker and Mark Hopkins, decided what the country needed was a transcontinental railroad. Their company, The Central Pacific Railroad company would hire 15,000 Chinese men to work on constructing the railroad due to the fact that they would work for less than the average American. This made transportation cheaper and quicker than ever