American West Dates

1836

migration to the west increases significantly

1841

First large wagon trail travels to California via Oregon trail

1845

Idea of manifest destiny spreads

1848

Gold discovered at sutters mill in California

1849

80,000 forty niners travel to California

1851

First fort Laramie treaty defines tribal lands

1861-65

American civil war

1862

• Homestead Act (160 acres free land).

• Pacific Railway Act.

• Dakota War.

1864

sand creek massacre led by John chivington

1866-68

Red clouds war

1868

• Second Fort Laramie Treaty.

• Great Sioux Reservation created.

1869

• First Transcontinental Railroad completed.

Early 1870s

• Mass slaughter of buffalo by hunters like Buffalo Bill.

1874

• Black Hills Expedition led by George Armstrong Custer.

• Barbed wire invented by Joseph Glidden.

1876

• Battle of the Little Bighorn.

• Led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

1881

• Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone.

1883

• Timber Culture Act (encouraged tree planting on Plains).

1886-87

• The Great Blizzard destroys much of the open-range cattle industry.

1887

• Dawes Act breaks up reservations into individual plots.

1889

• Oklahoma Land Rush.

1890

• Wounded Knee Massacre.

• Death of Sitting Bull.

• US Census declares the frontier closed.

1846-47

Mormons moved west under brigham young