SUMMARY
1. The discovery of gold and silver near the Rocky Mountains in 1858 and later brought to that region many thousand miners.
2. Their presence in that wild region made local government necessary, and by 1868 seven new territories were formed (Colorado, Dakota, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Montana, Wyoming), and one of them (Nevada, 1864) was admitted into the Union as a state.
3. Means of communication with California and the far West were improved. First came the Pony Express, then the telegraph, and finally the railroad.
4. The construction of the railroad across the middle of the country was followed by the building of another near the northern border.
5. Railroad building, the Homestead Law, and the success of the Dakota wheat farms, led to the rapid development of the new Northwest.
6. Quite as noticeable is the mechanical and industrial progress of the country, the rise of great corporations, and the flood of immigrants that came to our shores each year.