Westward Expansion, The Gold Rush, And The Oregon Trail

Westward Expansion Did you know that since there was not much wood, pioneers used cow chips for fuel? Can you imagine walking long distances or riding in a covered wagon for months with small amounts of food and water hoping to find gold? This is what the pioneers had to deal with as they traveled west. Pioneers moved west because they wanted more land. The westward expansion took a long time. The First Transcontinental Railroad, the Gold Rush, and the Oregon Trail were all big parts of the westward expansion.
The Transcontinental Railroad was a railroad built by Chinese and Irish workers which took six years. The Chinese workers worked for the Central Pacific railroad. They began the railroad in California and worked through the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the cold. The Union Pacific workers were Irish immigrants and they began that portion of the railroad in Omaha, Nebraska and worked west. Both sides of the railroad met in Utah. In between, the workers met Native American tribes which didn’t like the railroad and were forced off their land. Workers laid ten miles of railroad track each day and finally, the railroad was finished in 1869. At the end, a golden spike was hammered into the last train track.

John Sutter began building a sawmill with his workers in California. One of his workers, James Marshall, found gold in the river. Although John Sutter wanted to keep the gold a secret, too many workers who were helping to build the sawmill saw the gold and the gold rush began. People who sold supplies became rich because so many people bought supplies to look for gold. People from across the country moved west to try and find the gold. Some people thought using a sticky substance over their clothes would attract gold when they rolled around on the ground. Unfortunately, it didn’t work. Few people actually struck it