The Push West Timeline

By molly_5

  • 1848

    1848
    The discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in California sets off a human stampede west.

  • 1849

    1849
    People pour into California and boatloads of immigrants arrive from China.

  • 1862

    1862
    The Homestead Act is signed into low offering cheap land west of the Mississippi.

  • 1863

    1863
    Construction begins on a Transcontinental Railroad connection East with West.

  • 1865

    1865
    The civil war ends. Lincoln is assassinated and Johnson becomes president.
    *Abraham Lincoln was president at this time.

  • 1868

    1868
    The first barbed wire is introduced. The "Devil's Rope" fences off the Great Plains.

  • 1869

    1869
    Driving in Golden Spike in Utah ceremonially completes the Transcontinental Railroad.

  • 1874

    1874
    A new gold strike in Montana pushes Plains Indians from their homelands.

  • 1876

    1876
    Custer makes his last stand at the Battle of Little Bighorn.

  • 1877

    1877
    Nez Perce Chief Joseph surrenders after trying to keep his people off a reservation.

  • 1879

    1879
    After Reconstruction, African American "Exodusters" head west to Kansas and Oklahoma.

  • 1890

    1890
    The massacre of hunters of Lakota Indians Wounde Knee ends the Indians Wars.