American West: 1861-76

Lesson 8: A Home in the West

Starting a Town on the Plains

Cheyenne, Wyoming, 1876

Not everyone who moved onto the Plains became homesteaders. Some folks saw the wide-open Plains as a place to start towns. So the first big question for them was, why start a town? Once that was known the next question was, how do you start a town?

Many towns on the Plains floundered around for a few years, then the railroad reached them and things started to grow. Unless, of course, the railroads was the cause of a town’s beginnings. Railroad workers would move in, set up camp and start laying tracks. In no time, all manner of folks would show up. These usually weren’t the upstanding citizens one would first select to populate a town, but they were a start. Quite often, when the railroad had completed their work and moved on down the line the undesirable elements trekked along, too. Of course, that could mean that the town was through, unless some other prosperous industry was found to keep folks moving in to live in your town.

So, for whatever reason you have, you are going to start a town on the Plains. Under the terms of the Townsite Act that Congress passed back in 1844, any group of people could stake out 320 acres and take possession of it for $1.25 an acre. Next you divided this land into lots of 125 by 25 feet and sold them to those you could convince that your town was the best in the west.

A side note here is, if you were one of those green-horns from back east and some slick talking dude had this beautiful town out on the Plains, and his advertisement implied was the town was already built and ready to just move into, you needed to watch out. More often than not, once you’d handed over every dime you owned, packed up and moved to the Plains, your ‘town’ was just more rolling Plains with not a building in site. They called these sellers of towns many things out west but we’ll just refer to them as ‘speculators.’

Wells Fargo, Post Office, and Newspaper Shop at Kennewick, Washington Territory

But you have your town and you’ve divided it into lots. Now you need people to live in it. One of the first people you want to attract is a newspaperman. If you can, you hire one so he can help promote your town to those folks back east. Next you need a hotel and someone to run it. After all, folks moving to your fine city will need a place to stay until they construct a house.

Abilene, Kansas map

Now we get down to the important part — a saloon, or two, or even eleven just as Abilene, Kansas had in 1871. Granted the population only amounted to 800 citizens but as to body count, there were another some 5,000 thirsty cowboys up from Texas to accommodate — and relieve of their pay. And just in case these cowpokes have any extra money you had best start a store. But, for the most part, your town is on its way.

Actually, there were a lot of towns on the Plains, as far back as Lewis and Clarks' time. Don't believe me? Check out the article link below.

Prairie Dog Town By Mary Trotter Kion http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/grea... Unknown to Lewis and Clark, at the time, there were many towns scattered across the plains. They would be the strangest towns these men would ever see, the inhabitants stranger yet. All along the group had been amused by a Frenchman in their party who had been telling them of some unusual creatures the French called les petits chiens.

The source for this section is:

Wheeler, Keith. The Townsmen: The Old West. Time-Life Books, New York, 1975.

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