all right this is openstax u.s history chapter 17 section 3 making a living in gold and cattle so let's recall that 17-1 and 17-2 talk mostly about farming in the west which is what a lot of settlers want to the west to do but there was also money to be made in gold and cattle which were too also industries in the west that lured many settlers there so looking first at gold gold was probably the most popular in terms of what attracted the most people to the west but not the most practical because in fact most people who went out west in search of gold ended up not finding any this gold rush was spurred off in 1848 when gold was discovered in california and this set off a mad rush for people to go to california specifically sacramento northern california in search of gold the people who went to california in search of gold were called 49ers so these were the people who traveled west talking about california in search of gold uh they're called 49ers because of the year they traveled 1849 so gold discovered 1848 before it was verified you know one year later pretty soon you have you know thousands of people descending upon california looking for gold like i mentioned previously most came up empty-handed it was very rare for somebody actually to strike it rich but it had the effect of moving a lot of people over to california instead it was actually other minerals like silver and copper that proved to be more profitable in the long run you know silver especially the comstock load is i think the largest at least in the u.s silver mine and this was in nevada to a certain degree you know copper was a little bit less sexy than gold and silver but this was especially useful for things like wire and wiring especially with the advent of electricity so whether it was gold silver copper whatever it was there was a lot of mineral wealth that could be found now typically when the gold rush initi first started off it was individual prospectors panning for gold right so you see this image right here this is very much the type of gold mining that might have taken place in 1848 1849 etc etc however as time went on and especially with the advent of big business and railroads uh gold mining silver mining and copper mining became a much more corporate enterprise rather than individual prospectors so big business really became involved and typically if somebody were to strike it rich uh you know searching for gold it was by discovering it and then selling the land to a corporation which then would take investment capital which is you know money from investors people like jp morgan and bring in heavy machinery which could mine more efficiently like you know big hydro powered drills uh dynamite to blow up the mountains and then be able to extract whatever mineral wealth could be found via you know railroads and other things like that so that what that required then was instead miners to work in very dangerous working conditions in fact you know death rates were very high in the minds i think in fact i think mine mine workers or miners i think that was the highest death rate in the united states at this particular period maybe even more so than factory workers and railroad workers which is also a very dangerous enterprise uh as well you know and the discovery of gold could lead to towns essentially popping up overnight we called these boom towns so boom town was essentially a town that was created overnight due to the discovery of gold silver or copper however once all those minerals were you know extracted those towns evacuated right so we use this term ghost towns to describe former mining towns that become abandoned abandon and you know this type of you know finding mineral wealth you know a bunch of people rushing into one place big businesses coming in with the machinery and railroads and you know once all the wealth was extracted you know those towns just sort of disappearing this all contributed to what we might refer to as the wild west is that there was a certain sense of lawlessness right there wasn't sort of a firm proper structure order going here and things often were very very messy out last so mining was certainly one uh you know and it wasn't just gold but silver and copper as well another very profitable industry that emerged in the west was what we call the cattle kingdom the this would be you know meat and stuff like that associated with cattle products you had many long corn cattle in texas and previously really before the railroad there was no reliable way of getting cattle products to you know cities like new york cities like chicago railroads really made the cattle business possible right possible and ranchers teamed up with big business who would provide investments to use or create what were called cattle drives and cattle drives were you know driving or maybe guiding cattle from texas to kansas kansas was where the railroad was and then those would bring that to the city right and that's more or less how the cattle industry emerged so you know again driving from texas to kansas a cattle drive would look something like this where you'd have uh you know a cowboy on horse and they would be directing this you know this massive kind of uh you know herd of cattle here over hundreds of miles uh once reaching kansas those cattle would be put on the railroad then they would be sent to the cities and that would you know that created really the modern cattle industry uh the individuals who uh you know made this drive possible were cowboys again these are people who work in the cattle industry also became a very much of a romanticized symbol of the west you know uh a lot in uh american culture is based off the cowboy the reality for cowboys was that it was a very difficult life uh you know there's a certain uh you know media uh literature poetry and later on movies and tv shows uh romanticized what romanticized means is kind of like only emphasize the good aspects of it but the reality was that you know life as a cowboy was incredibly tough it was lonely it was low paying it was long days it was uncomfortable a lot of the culture that american cowboys used actually came from mexican ranchers you know this territory before texas in uh you know 1848 and before that had been mexico right and it only after that had become the united states and so a lot of the ranching industry that was there before 1848 was really put together by mexican ranchers we might say influenced the american cowboy in terms of you know culture and and tactics or whatever you call it uh dress attire etc etc uh however these cattle drives came to an end with the invention of barb wire this is a picture of the invention of barbed wire here if you're not entirely familiar with what barbed wire is it is fencing that has you know very kind of spiky and and it's not fun to touch uh you know it it was primarily used to ensure that cattle sort of stay in their own area barbed wire was used to fence off land and it disrupted cattle drives right think here about these cattle drives that went from you know texas maybe let's use a different color so we can actually see what's going on here you know the cattle drives that went from texas to kansas well you know once you you know create all these different obstacles with people fencing off their land with barbed wire more or less killed that industry and so as a result of barbed wire cattle drives were essentially killed off and instead you have strictly a big business type of livestock industry emerge as a result of that so in addition to farming uh mining was big the cattle industry was also another big part of the western economy now like we mentioned before uh the west has a certain romanticized um perspective to it right you know the idea is that the west is all about gambling and gun fights and you know there is a certain reality to that but there's also a lot of the west that is amis a myth right so that's like not entirely true to what is portrayed in culture so the myth of the west there's a tendency to exaggerate and glorify the violence people like wyatt earp and doc holliday became somewhat mythical figures uh you know they participated in various shootouts and they became somewhat of legend uh in sort of american lore uh however it was a pretty violent place uh in the west you know there wasn't a lot of the structures there that were necessary to maintain law and order there were a lot of times no policemen no jails no courthouses no you know territories in which there was no legislation or laws on the book so when you combine that you know many young men money liquor disappointment this is a recipe for violence right a recipe for violence because there was no lawlessness there was frontier justice we might say this is people taking the law into their own hands right you know the idea is that whoever whoever claims themselves to be the sheriff and just puts the badge on essentially gets to determine what the law and order is in that society the murder rates in the west were much higher than other places in the united states and this was also true in the ranching industry so for example with the advent of barbed wire and the killing of you know cattle drives this led to competition and outright violence between various ranchers the fence cutting war was a violent clash between ranchers you know being threatened by not being able to continue their you know their cattle business however uh you know slowly uh lawlessness did get a taste of law some of this had to do with the sex ratio that is the amount of men to women right as more women arrived there was you know more institutions so you had more churches schools and cracks down on various vices you saw the united states pass a few laws the comstock law what we might call this might be an anti-pornography law so the mailing of any sort of lewd or obscene materials the page act was an anti-prostitution law which of course was very much rampant in the west but this you know transformation from lawlessness to a more orderly society in the west you know it took time all right it took time it didn't happen overnight