At the end of the Civil War, most of the Western Frontier in the United States lay undeveloped. It was a place of adventure, opportunity, and danger for the white settler. In the next two decades, it would grow into an agricultural powerhouse fueled by the rich soils of the Great Plains. Railroads would cross the region, promoting national trade between the East and West. American Indians had inhabited the West long before the settlers and resisted the foreign cultures imposed on them. The rapid population growth radically changed nearly all parts of western culture, changing it from a place of legend into an essential part of the American economy. Farming in the West was drastically changed by the influx of new settlers. In the period after the Civil War, more land was developed for farming than the past 250 years combined (Foner 604). As larger areas were settled, corporate farms called “bonanza farms” came into existence. A bonanza farm consisted of 3,000 to 100,000 acres and attempted to capitalize on economies of scale with shared equipment and efficient managing (Drache). In California, wheat production quadrupled from 1865 to 1875 (Turrill 35). As access to railroads increased, the future of farming in the West was large scale farming for a global market. …show more content…
The entire region was opened up to trade its agricultural harvest with the industry in the East. The amount of railroad miles in the United States tripled between 1860 and 1880, with five transcontinental railroads by the 1890’s (Foner 596). In San Francisco, imports from railroads climbed by 20% in 1975, while imports from shipping through the Panama fell by nearly half (Turrill 32). The West quickly changed from a frontier into an influential part of the national economy. However, this expansion came with a great cost, the destruction of an entire