WSP04630 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

Council Bluffs, Ia., to Cheyenne, Wyo., and was con- nected with the Central Pacific Railroad in Utah in 1869. The first railroad into Denver was completed in June 1870 from Cheyenne. Later in that year, a railroad line was completed from Denver eastward. Railroad construction proceeded fairly rapidly in Kansas, Neb- raska, and eastern Colorado from the early 1870's into the late 1880's, by which time most of the major railroad lines were in operation in these States. Railroads entered the eastern portion of both Dakotas in the early 1870's, and most of the major railroad lines east of the Missouri River in these States were in operation by the late 1880's. The first trans- continental railroad line across the northern portion of the basin was the Northern Pacific, which reached Bismarck, N. Dak., in 1873, with the transcontinental connection through Montana completed in 1883. The Great Northern Railway entered North Dakota in 1880 and was completed across the Missouri Basin during that decade. The first railroad coming into the basin portion of Montana was the Union Pacific, which entered that State from Idaho in the early 1870's. Railroads entered the Black Hills of South Dakota from Nebraska in 1885. Construction of railroads across the Missouri River to western South Dakota was not completed until 1907. Of major significance in financing construction of railroads were large grants of land by the Federal Government which were subsequently sold to private individuals for development. Large cattle outfits entered the southern plains portion of the basin in the late 1860's. As settlers moved in, following the railroads, range cattlemen were forced out and they moved on northward. In the 1870's, cattlemen were operating in western Nebraska, Colo- rado, and parts of Wyoming and Montana. In the 1880's, they reached farther northward and spread through most of the remaining plains area that was not within Indian reservations. The last of the large cattle drives from Texas to the northern Great Plains was in the middle 1890's. The era of large open-range cattle outfits drew to a close in the northern Great Plains in the first decade of the 20th century. The era of the homesteader concluded in the upper Great Plains at the end of the second decade of the 20th century. This ended the basic settlement era, although the legal framework for homestead entry was not changed until February 4, 1935, when the President, by Executive Order, temporarily withdrew all such public lands subject to classification for private entry. The farmers' frontier had met and expropriated much of the ranchers' cow country and now reached the mining country in the Rockies. Economically, the basin was almost wholly agricultural, the new territories separating roughly into the wheat country of Montana, the Dakotas and Kansas; the corn belt of Iowa and adjacent South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri; 8 and livestock range in arid sections of Wyoming and Colorado. In the mountains gold booms were over and agriculture had become firmly established. Irrigation had been introduced in valleys and along mountain fronts with water laws based upon the doctrine of prior appropriation operating as the guiding principle. The predominant nationality groups that came to the basin were the Germans, Russians, Norwegians, Swedes, Czechs, Italians, and the English, in about that numerical order. Germans accounted for about 20 percent of the foreign-born population. However, if all the people with a background from the British Isles (English, Irish, Scotch, and Welsh) were grouped together, they would probably rival the Germans as the most numerous. In addition, there were several other nationalities but their numbers were relatively small. Many came as colonizing groups sponsored by churches, railroads, or other settler agencies. Descendents of these original settlers continue to occupy the basin today because later immigration has been relatively small. There are 10 states partially or entirely within the Missouri Basin. These states, the order in which they were admitted to the Union, and the date of admission are shown in table I. Table 1 - ORDER OF STATEHOOD Sta te Order of Admission Date of Admission Missouri 24th August 10, 1821 Iowa 29th December 28, 1846 Minnesota 32nd May II, 1858 Kansas 34th January 29, 1861 Nebraska 37th March I, 1867 Colorado 38th August 1, 1876 North Dakota 39th or 40th November 2, 1889 South Dakota 39th or 40th November 2, 1889 Montana 41 st November 8,1889 Wyoming 44th July 10, 1890 A phase of the occupation of the plains section of the basin was the dispossession of the Indians. Until 1861, the Indians were generally on friendly terms with the United States, even though their lands were continually traversed by surveyors and miners. Later, driven to desperation by the obvious fact that the end was near, the Indians made their last stand against the encroaching settlement by the whites. The Sioux uprising of 1862 was followed by that of the Cheyenne and other tribes in the sixties, and the struggle culminated in the Sioux war of 1876. After this, the Indians were largely contained upon their reservations. Today, about 58,000 Indians inhabit 23 reservations in the Missouri Basin. Indians own about 18,000 square miles or about 4 percent of the basin's area.