Mining Booms and Boom towns
In the late 1850s, gold was found in the West. The "greatest gold mine in America" around Pikes Peak, Colorado was discovered in 1858. In 1859, ten years after the California Gold Rush, a miner named Henry Comstock found a bonanza - a large deposit of precious ore-of gold and silver in Nevada, which became known as Comstock Lode. As more bonanza's were discovered, prospectors like the ones shown in the picture on the left, rushed West, hoping to get rich. However, in order to mine the precious metals, miners needed expensive equipment. Companies took advantage of this scenario by providing miners with this equipment and gaining profit. As a result, mining, the biggest business in the West, became dominated by large companies.
As prospectors moved West, they needed a place to stay. So, boomtowns, or Western communities that grew quickly because of mining booms, sprang up. Boomtowns were mostly inhabited by men and contained general stores containing basic supplies, saloons, and boardinghouses, where miners stayed. The few women who lived in mining towns were lonely, however many contributed to the wealth of the town by cooking, washing clothes, etc., and helped turn these boomtowns into permanent cities.
Communication and Transportation
As Americans began moving west, there was an urgent need for better communication and transportation systems. As a result, the U.S. formed the Pony Express , a system of messengers on horseback who carried mail across the eastern and western U.S. through a rout which was 2,000 miles long. However, after telegraphs were invented, the Pony Express dissolved. Eventually, a new method of enhancing communication and transportation in the U.S. was suggested- a transcontinental railroad which would link East to West. The government liked this idea and they passed the Pacific Railway Acts - two laws passed in 1862 and 1864 which gave loans and land grants to railroad companies in order to encourage them to build the transcontinental railroad.
The Railroad Race
Once the Pacific Railway Acts were passed, the race to built the transcontinental railroad was on. The Central Pacific and the Union Pacific companies were were the head-runners of the railroad race. On 1863, they both started building-Central Pacific in Sacramento, California and Union Pacific in Omaha, Nebraska. The two companies were different in the regard that they hired different workers. The Union Pacific hired Irish immigrants and Civil War veterans, while the Central Pacific focused mainly on Chinese immigrants. Leland Stanford was the part-owner of the Central Pacific and he praised Chinese workers, despite the fact that he payed them less than white workers and gave them more dangerous tasks. Both companies used local resources to keep their workers well-nourished. But despite the workers' good health they faced geographic problems. The railroad had to cross through some undesirable terrain, such as the Sierra Nevada range in California. On May 10, 1869 the two separate railroads finally met and the transcontinental railroad united East and West. It increased the economy and the population of the West and railroads eventually became the biggest industry in the U.S.