Miraculous Transformation By the 1870s, Civil War America has been almost entirely swept aside by the march of industrial progress. More and more, business is being powered by steam equipment. This ranges from iron rolling mills to clattering textile mills, and even remote silver mines. Locomotives are just the most visible element of this new, powered landscape.

	Bigger and Stronger California has been a state since 1850, but completely isolated on the Pacific coast. Railroads have now bridged the gap, and steam power has arrived in San Francisco. The great coal fields (GRAY) are located within easy reach of almost every state east of the prairie. Indians, meanwhile, have been largely corralled onto reservations across the West (BROWN highlights), though not all have yet been subdued. The US Army, which is no longer needed to suppress rebels, will soon be sent west to finish this job.
	Still Racing West This map shows growth. The brightest BLUE highlights indicate regions with the highest growth rate. RED areas are actually shrinking in population, dramatically so in some areas of the Deep South. This continues a trend that began decades earlier, but the effects now are more pronounced. Notice all the red running in a broad diagonal band from Ohio down to Louisiana. There are areas that were showing strong growth just 20 years earlier. But now, the rush into cheap western land has become a frenzy.