History - Westward Expansion, Booms, and Busts

The westward expansion of the United States is one of the defining themes of 19th-century American history. Over a period of approximately 100 years, the country increased in size tremondously and settlers ventured out to try their luck on a new frontier. Expansion and migration was greatly encouraged, even taking on a religious fervor with the concept of "Manifest Destiny." Americans percieved a divine mission to occupy North America all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

Early Days

In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson purchased the territory of Louisiana from the French government for $15 million. The Louisiana Purchase stretched from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from Canada to New Orleans, and it doubled the size of the United States. To Jefferson, westward expansion was the key to the nation’s health.

By 1840, nearly 7 million Americans – 40 percent of the nation’s population–lived in the trans-Appalachian West. Following a trail blazed by Lewis and Clark, most of these people had left their homes in the East in search of economic opportunity. Like Thomas Jefferson, many of these pioneers associated westward migration, land ownership and farming with freedom. In Europe, large numbers of factory workers formed a dependent and seemingly permanent working class; by contrast, in the United States, the western frontier offered the possibility of independence and upward mobility for all. In 1843, one thousand pioneers took to the Oregon Trail as part of the "Great Emigration."

Gold Rush

The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848 unleashed the largest migration in United States history and drew people from a dozen countries to form a multi-ethnic society on America's fringe. The promise of wealth forever altered the life expectations of the hundreds of thousands of people who flooded California in 1849 and the decade that followed. The gold also fired up the U.S. economy and fueled wild dreams like the construction of a cross-country railroad line.

By 1849, the non-native population of California had grown to almost 100,000 people. Nearly two-thirds were Americans. Upon arrival in California, immigrants learned mining was the hardest kind of labor. They moved rock, dug dirt and waded into freezing streams. They lost fingernails, got sick and suffered malnutrition. Many died of disease or by accident. Hiram Pierce, a miner from Troy, New York, conducted a funeral for a young man from Maine who died of gangrene after carelessly shooting himself in the leg.

Civilization Moves On

The completion of the railroads to the West following the Civil War opened up vast areas of the region to settlement and economic development. It also brought more effecient extraction processes that improved mine productivity, but closed out mines faster and left individual prospectors in the dust. Many towns that propsered around a single activity, such as mining, quickly dried up after mines closed down. Others were bypassed by key railway lines and spurs, causing people to set up shop elsewhere.

As the frontier dwindled, many boomtowns in relatively remote places saw their fortunes fade and residents move to bigger cities. Some towns continued to hold out well into the 20th century, but the tide was inevitable and these places eventually became ghost towns.