US presidents played an important role in nation building. Their impact on the history of the West was reflected through the creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs in 1824, and acts such as the Homestead Act of 1862, the Pacific Railroad Act of 1862, and the multiple treaties with Indian tribes.

 

Initially, between 1800 and 1840, there were the mountain men who first trapped beavers in the North and who later opened up the roads that would open the West to U.S. expansion and settlement.

 

In the 1840s, the Plains – the area between the Mississippi River to the east, and the Rocky Mountains to the west- were abandonned by Oregon and California because they were unwelcoming due to lack of water, lack of trees, harsh climate and swarms of locusts. In comparison, Oregon had wooded valleys, water, mild summers and winters and land for free in the early days, California had also water, mild summers and winters and later gold.

 

In 1843, about 1,000 people with 120 wagons and huge herds of cattle and oxen met in Missouri to start their journey to the West on the Oregon Trail. The following year, more than 1,500 people made the trip, arriving either in Oregon or California. The year after more than 2,500 pioneers set off for Oregon or California.

 

The conquest of the West was on its way ...

 

In 1848, gold was discovered in California and California's population grew very rapidly. This year about 12,000 people traveled overland to the Pacific Coast.

 

In the early 1850s, after the rush to California, the people began to settle in other points along the westward trails. One of these places was the previously neglected Plains. Conflicts with Plain Indian tribes erupted from this period.

 

Stagecoach companies began also to appear, paving the way to passengers and goods transport.

 

In 1853, the War Department conducted surveys for potential transcontinental railroad routes from the Mississippi ranging from north to south. However no route could be agreed upon and passed authorizing the Government's financial support and land grants as southern states were opposite to a central route.

 

In 1858 gold was discovered in the Pikes's Peak mountains, Colorado and triggered a new big rush.

 

In 1860, the California population reached nearly 400,000 and it continued to grow at a rate twice that of the nation as a whole in the 1860s.

 

In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Homestead Act, when 4.3 million acres were settled, mainly in the high and central plains regions. The act touched off a mass migration drawing people from all over the world to the interior of the United States. Overall, the amount of farmland under cultivation doubled.

 

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