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| 1890 |
Congress establishes the Oklahoma
Territory on unoccupied lands in the Indian Territory, breaking a
60-year-old pledge to preserve this area exclusively for Native Americans
forced from their lands in the east. |
 |
| 1890 |
Wyoming enters the Union. |
|
| 1890 |
Sitting Bull is murdered in a confrontation at the Standing Rock
Reservation when Lakota policemen attempt to arrest him as part
of a federal crackdown on the Ghost Dance.
 Federal
troops massacre the Lakota Chief Big Foot and his 350 followers
at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation in a confrontation
fueled by the government’s determination to stop the spread of the
Ghost Dance among the tribes. The incident stands in U.S. military
history as the last armed engagement of the Indian Wars.
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|
| 1890 |
Congress establishes Yosemite National
Park at the urging of naturalist John Muir, who argues passionately
for the preservation of its sequoia forests. |
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| 1890 |
 The
U. S. Supreme Court upholds the constitutionality of the 1887 Edmunds-Tucker
Act, denying that its assault on Mormon institutions constitutes a
violation of Mormon religious freedom. At the same time, Congress
debates the even more punitive Cullom-Strubble Bill, designed to deny
all Mormons the right to vote. In response, Wilford Woodruff, leader
of the Mormon Church, issues the "Manifesto," a revelation
urging all members of the church to comply with the laws of the land
regarding marriage. |
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| 1891 |
Congress passes the Forest Reserve
Act, which authorizes setting aside public forests in any state or
territory to preserve a timber supply for the future. The law marks
the first step in a process that will steadily place more and more
Western land in the hands of the federal government while leaving
less and less available for private purchase and use. As a result,
federal priorities in the West gradually shift from selling public
land to managing public resources, from land development to land conservation,
and federal regulations become a permanent presence on the once wide
open spaces. |
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| 1892 |
Congress extends the Chinese Exclusion
Act for an additional ten years, adding a requirement that all Chinese
workers in the United States register or face deportation. |
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| 1892 |
A strike by silver miners in Coeur
d'Alene, Idaho, erupts in violence, as miners are killed and a security
guard barracks blown up. State and federal troops intervene to restore
order by locking miners into an outdoor bullpen. The miners' defeat
leads to the formation of the Western Federation of Miners in Butte,
Montana, the next year, an organization representing mine workers
across the West. |
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| 1892 |
Under the Dawes Act, nearly two
million acres of Crow tribal land is opened to white settlers in Montana. |
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| 1892 |
John Muir founds the Sierra Club
in Yosemite Valley, California, to “protect the nation's scenic resources”
and oppose the lumber industry’s encroachments on public forests. |
|
| 1893 |
Presidential amnesty is granted to Mormon polygamists, marking
the federal government's first step toward closing the book on the
"Mormon problem."
 Frederick
Jackson Turner, a 31-year-old instructor at the University of Wisconsin,
declares the closing of the Western frontier in his seminal lecture,
The Significance of the Frontier in American History, delivered
at a meeting of the American Historical Association held in conjunction
with the Chicago Columbian Exposition.
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| 1893 |
Experts estimate that fewer that
2,000 buffalo remain of the more than 20 million that once roamed
the Western plains. |
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| 1893 |
More than 100,000 white settlers
rush into Oklahoma's Cherokee Outlet to claim six million acres of
former Cherokee land. |
|
| 1894 |
Nebraska Congressman William Jennings
Bryan -- "The Great Commoner" -- gains national attention
as the West's eloquent spokesman against the restrictive economic
policies of east coast capitalists, emblemized by the gold standard. |
|
| 1894 |
The Carey Act grants one million
acres of public land to arid states and territories on the condition
they "reclaim" the land by irrigation and sell it to settlers.
This attempt to promote irrigation of arid Western lands proves unsuccessful
when states find they cannot raise the funds to mount large-scale
irrigation projects. Effective land reclamation in the West will require
a massive federal investment. |
|
| 1896 |
Utah enters the Union. |
|
| 1896 |
William Jennings Bryan's "Cross
of Gold" speech against the restrictive gold standard makes him
the Presidential candidate of the Democratic and Populist parties,
but his appeal to rural voters in the West and South does not carry
him to the White House. |
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| 1896 |
The discovery of gold at Bonanza
Creek, a tributary of the Klondike River near Dawson City, Alaska,
sparks the last great Western rush for riches. |
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| 1898 |
The United States annexes Hawaii. |
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| 1899 |
Robert Parker and his partner,
Harry Longbaugh, better known as Butch Cassidy and "The Sundance
Kid," lead their "Wild Bunch" in a series of bank and
train robberies across the West. When they eventually flee to South
America in 1901, the era of the outlaw band comes to an end. |
