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Westward Expansion
Vocabulary Words
Question | Answer |
---|---|
Pony Espress | Service begun in 1860 that used a relay of riders on horses to deliver mail from Missouri to California in ten days. |
Telegraph | Device that sends messages through wires using electricity |
Transcontinental Railroad | Railroad that crosses a continent. The first Transcontinental Railroad in the USA was completed in 1869 |
Promontory Point, Utah | Place in northwest Utah where tracks of the Union Pacific were left |
Great Plains | Vast region of dry grassland in the middle of the country and central pacific railroads in 1869 |
Homestead Act | Law signed in 1862 offering free land to people willing to start new farms on the Great Plains |
Homesteaders | Settlers who claimed land on the Great Plains under the Homestead Act |
Sodbusters | Great Plain farmers of the late 1800's who had cut through sod, thick grass, before planting crops |
Dustbuster | Name for African Americans pioneers who moved to the great plains after the Civil War |
Reservation | Land set aside by the government for the Native Americans |
Boomtown | A town undergoing rapid growth due to sudden propensity |
Prospector | Someone looking for mineral deposits(usually after gold) |