ABSTRACT
By the time of the Civil War the westward-moving frontier line had extended beyond the Mississippi, a number of states on the west coast had been formed, and a second frontier line was moving eastward from California and Oregon. In 1860 the great intervening area between these frontier lines contained only 1 per cent of the total population of the nation. In the latter part of the nineteenth century this barren region was largely occupied. Several transcontinental railroads facilitated the process of rapid expansion. Miners, cattlemen, and homesteaders made their way to the area, and by the turn of the century the frontier was closed.
