Jump to CaliforniaTelegraph wires Continued migration West Oregon Trail California Gold Rush Railroad hub cities Mexican War |
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Rocket Fuel for Real Estate Just as important as the railroads themselves are the rail stops, which are spaced 5 to 10 miles apart along every rail line. This creates a whole array of towns in areas which had previously been open farmland, causing land values to balloon. This, in turn, creates an additional boost to westward migration. There is now money to be made in just holding land, which becomes more valuable by the month. The faint lines indicate mail routes, which are no longer used for long-distance travel. | |||||||||
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King Cotton The cumulative impact of railroads in the South is far less pronounced, as railroad lines are far less dense, and rail stops relatively unimportant. The southern rail lines serve a different purpose, which is delivering cotton to shipping ports on the coast. There are just two major rail corridors, connecting the cotton-growing center in Alabama and Georgia with the twin ports of Charleston and Savannah. Cotton grown further west is transported by riverboat on the Mississippi River, down to New Orleans. | |||||||||
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Twin Migration Flows The two migration flows shown above (arrows) are propelled by entirely different forces. In the North, railroads are the prime driver, bringing commerce and development at the speed of a locomotive. In the South, planters are attracted to open land along the Gulf Coast, because it's ideally suited to cotton plantations. BLUE indicates population growth, while RED is shrinkage. | |||||||||
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Huge Leap Beyond the Mississippi River, America is a vast semi-barren wilderness, with two exceptions. The Oregon Trail, in the north, provides pioneers with a route through the Rocky Mountains to the lush Pacific Northwest. Meanwhile, gold has just been discovered near the broad Sacramento Valley, in California. Some prospectors branch off from the Oregon Trail to get there, but most take steamships or clipper ships direct to San Francisco. The result is rapid settlement of the entire northern region of California. | |||||||||
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Getting There There are three ways to get to California. The easiest is to take a clipper ship from New York, around the tip of South America, and back up to San Francisco. This might take four or five months. A quicker, more popular option is to take a steamship to Panama, spend a week crossing the isthmus by canoe and mule, and then catch another streamer on the Pacific side, up to San Francisco. This is twice as fast, but involves exposure to mosquitos and tropical diseases. Some prospectors also arrive from Oregon. | |||||||||