The Far West

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The Far West

• Intro
• Natural Environments of the Far West
• First Peoples of the Far West
• Incursions
• Gold Rushes Development
• California and the Idea of the Far West

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Seminar Question Week 19

• In what ways did modernity re-organize the 19th
  and 20th century city spatially (or in other
  words what was modern about the spaces and
  spatial arrangements of the 19th and 20th century
  city)?

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Environments of the Far West

• Rocky Mtns -- eastern edge
• Western edge -- Coast Mountains in BC -- Cascade
  Mountains in Wash Oreg -- Sierra Nevada in
  Calif.
• Interior
• Interior Plateau/Columbia Plateau
• Great Basin
• Colorado Plateau

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Peoples of the Far West

• Southern Colorado Plateau
• Hopi agl
• Great Basin
• Paiute and Shoshone
• fire encouraged wild seed plants, tobacco
• California
• densely populated
• irrigation systems
• burning chapparal
• Pacific NW
• wet, moderate
• salmon run
• Coast Salish, Haida, Skagit , Snohomish

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Haida Raven by Lyle Campbell
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Raven the First Men by Bill Reid (Haida)
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New Spain

• Rio Grande Valley
• Santa Fe was 200 years old, 4,635 residents in
  1860
• Presidio (garrison)
• California
• New Mexico
• large mestizo popln

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New Spain

• Many Pueblo villages -- adobe -- Rio Grande was a
  Hispanic and Pueblo space
• So -- successful if uneasy coexistence in New
  Mexico -- California Native cultures were
  undermined, made into a labouring class

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Britain and the Fur Trade

• Captain Cook, Nootka Sound, 1778
• sea-otter pelts
• Boston Men vs. King George Men (1790s)

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The Nuuchahnuulth
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James Cook at Nootka Sound
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The Inland Fur Trade

• collapse of sea otter popln (1820s)
• Fort Astoria (1811)
• Oregon Territory (1818)
• George Simpson
• Fort Vancouver
• Overtrapping policy vs. Americans

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Texas

• 27,000 white Americans and 3,000 Af-Am slaves by
  1835 versu 3,000 Mexicans
• Battle of the Alamo (Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie)
• Battle of Jacinto, April 1836
• declare independence under Sam Houston

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Oregon California

• Oregon Trail, 1843
• Willamette Valley
• Mormons at Great Salt Lake, 1847-
• Fort Victoria, 1843
• Sacramento Valley
• Southern California

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54-40 or Fight!

• Oregon Fever -- 1843
• Democrat James K. Polk -- 54-40 or Fight!
• Oregon Treaty, 1846
• Mexican War, 1846-48
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo -- Mexico cedes
  Texas, New Mexico, California

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Gold Fever

• California Gold Rush, 1849
• San Francisco
• metropolis of the far west
• 57,000 people by 1860 -- California 300,000
• Miners law

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Gold the Far West

• Nevada side of Sierras
• Rocky Mtns in Colorado
• Fraser River in BC in 1858
• Montana Wyoming in 1860s
• Black Hills of South Dakota 1870s
• Couer dAlene region of Idaho in 1880s

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Gold Towns

• Virginia City, Nevada
• Victoria, BC
• From 300 to 3,000
• Barkerville, BC -- population of 10,000 in 1863
• Colony of British Columbia, Nov 1858

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Spaces of Resource CapitalNelson versus Sandon,
BC
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Class Relations in Resource Towns

• Miners Strike in Couer dAlene, Idaho, 1892
• Western Federation of Miners
• Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies)
• Sept 1912 -- strike at Cumberland, Vancouver
  Island

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Minings Broader Effect

• Portland, Ore
• Seattle, WA
• Oregon Washington
• 100,000 in 1870
• 750,000 in 1890

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The Rise of Vancouver

• Gastown -- 1884 -- 900 people
• CPR in 1886 -- 2,000 people
• 1891 -- 14,000 people
• Transport, shipping, services
• A City of Homes

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Logging on present-day Georgia Street, 1900 (?)
Moodys Sawmill, Burrard Inlet, 1880s
Forest industry in Vancouver
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The Rise of Vancouver
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California Ethnicity

• Hispanic working-class
• Chinese
• Orientalism
• Chinese Exclusion Act, 1882 (US)
• Chinese Head Tax, 1885 (Canada)
• Anti-Asian Riot, 1907
• Chinese Exclusion Act, 1923 (Canada)

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California Fruit

• Refrigerated rail car, irrigation, 1888
• By 1890 -- nations leader in irrigated acreage
• Standardization
• Bartlett pear easy to grow, can, ship (taste?)
• Creation of demand

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California Climate

• Southern Pacific and Santa Fe Railroads
• boost climate of southern California
• Rate war
• Los Angeles
• 3 of state popln in 1870
• 12 by 1900
• Land of sunshine and orange groves

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Half Dome, Winter - Yosemite National Park by
Ansel Adams
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Banff National Park, 1886
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Hetch Hetchy Valley
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California the Idea of the Far West

• California -- a place about nature, sold itself
  on nature
• Also -- the idea that nature had limits
• These ideas became important for much of the far
  west, as California, with its economic and
  cultural presence on the national and North
  American stage, became the face of the Far West