The Effects Of Westward Expansion

At the beginning of the 1840’s there was a new mindset that was summed up by Horace Greeley’s famous quote, "Go West, Young man." This was only fueled by the numerous Natural and Social environmental advantages of going west. The Natural environment of the West was the land, gold, industry, and climate. The Social environment of the West was freedom and Native American interaction. The natural environment along with the social environment of the West helped greatly shape the way in which the West was developed and the way in which people lived their lives while west of the Mississippi river.

The Natural environment of the West greatly affected the development of the west. First natural environmental factor was gold and other precious minerals. The discovery of gold and silver led many poor Americans to move to the far West. The great and sudden rush of people led to boom towns, which were towns that were basically built over night. These towns often had no police and mainly had just bars, brothels, and motels. Most of these boom towns became ghost towns when the mine dried up. On occasion some of these towns would remain and grow greatly. Some of these towns included San Francisco, Sacramento Denver, and Greeley. The growth of Greeley, Colorado can be seen in Document G. In addition to gold and other minerals being an important natural environmental factor, so was the land. To the east of the Mississippi river, according to the map in document A, most of the land was forest. In the west however, most of the land was grass or desert. This shaped the development of the west because the grass lands allowed for vast amounts of farming and grazing, while the desert was full of precious minerals to be mined. The negative of the desert was the lack of water, which led to a little amount towns showing up over the desert. The lack of water in the mid west led to a great increase in dry-farming techniques. The lack of water also made cattle herding very hard, which can best be seen in Andy Adams, The Log of a Cowboy, when he writes, “…after passing the next chain of lakes it was sixty miles to the next water. …There are only five herds ahead of us, and the first three went through the old rout, but the last two… for some reason or other turned and went westward” (Doc.