During the 25 years following the Civil War, the American frontier moved steadily west. So dense was settlement by 1890 that people claimed the frontier had virtually disappeared. Spearheading the drive into the western territories were miners and cowboys. The miners were drawn by discoveries such as the famed Comstock Lode of silver in Nevada and the gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Though remembered in legend as hard-drinking tellers of tall tales, the miners were first of all businessmen who were able to evolve precise sets of efficient property rights from their crude mining camp rules (Libecap 1978).
The cowboys came to spur cattle on the long drives to market. Cattle drives from Texas began in 1866, and by the 1880s, cattle baronies of great wealth occupied the territories from Texas to Montana. The cattle drives were destined for the nearest railheads: in the earliest years Sedalia, Missouri, but later Abilene (the destination of the famous Chisholm Trail) and then Dodge City, Kansas (for transport to Chicago). The rise and decline of the great long-distance cattle drives is fascinating history and superb folklore.1 The long drives ended abruptly in 1885, not because of the advent of barbed wire (as popularly believed) but because northern cattlemen organized and created new institutions to curb the overstocking of the northern ranges. The passage and enforcement of quarantine laws kept out the distant Texas herds.75 76
However important miners and cattlemen were as path breakers, the families who settled down to farm set the abiding economic pattern of the West. This chapter tells their economic history: how they got title to their land, what they grew and how they grew it, what prices they were paid for their products, and why many farmers became disillusioned with the economic system and demanded help from state governments and, ultimately, from Washington, D. C.
World History
