|
| |
|
| 1901 |
The Spindletop oil gusher in Beaumont,
Texas, opens a century when "black gold" will play a vital
role in the economy of the West, as Americans exchange the horse for
the horsepower of the automobile. |
 |
| 1901 |
Congresss confers U.S. citizenship
on all Native Americans residing in the Oklahoma Territory after the
failure of an 1890 law that offered citizenship to Indians who applied
for it. Only four applicants had taken advantage of the earlier law,
all of whom evidently suffered ostracism for adopting the white man's
ways. |
|
| 1902 |
Owen Wister publishes The Virginian,
a novel romanticizing cowboy life in the Wyoming cattle country of
the 1870s which introduces the strong, silent hero and the climactic
"showdown" to the growing myth of the American West. |
|
| 1902 |
 President
Theodore Roosevelt secures passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act,
an unprecedented law authorizing federal construction of dams and
reservoirs in the West funded by public land sales. The act is designed
to promote settlement (rather than industry) by limiting tracts
within the water project areas to 160 acres, in accordance with
the 1862 Homestead Act, and is designed to be self-sustaining by
passing the costs of construction on to water-users, who are to
assume management of each project once the federal government has
been reimbursed.
In practice, these latter aspects of the law often prove unworkable,
and the effect of the Newlands Act is to institute a massive federally-funded
public works program operating under bureaucratic control that measures
its success by the number of dams built and the millions of acres
of water impounded. By this measure, the Newlands Act achieves outstanding
success, leading ultimately to the colossal projects of the Depression
years: Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, Shasta Dam and the Glen
Canyon Dam.
|
|
| 1905 |
President Theodore Roosevelt transfers
management of the federal forest reserves to the United States Forest
Service, an agency headed by college-trained conservationist Gifford
Pinchot. Invoking scientific principles and applying bureaucratic
procedures, Pinchot works effectively to guarantee the long-term usefulness
of western timberlands, resisting business interests that would exploit
them for short-term profit as well as preservationists, led by John
Muir, who would remove them forever from the national economy. |
|
| 1905 |
Western Federation of Miners official,
William K. "Big Bill" Haywood, hoping to broaden the base
of unionism in the West, co-founds the Industrial Workers of the World
(IWW), a socialist organization opposed to capitalism and dedicated
to the creation of "One Big Union" for all members of the
working class rather than individual unions for each industry. IWW
members become known as "Wobblies," a nickname that has
never been successfully explained. |
|
| 1906 |
A devastating earthquake virtually destroys San Francisco, setting
off fires that burn out eight square miles in the city, leaving
250,000 homeless.
 Congress
adopts the Preservation of American Antiquities Act, designed primarily
to protect historic sites for posterity. President Theodore Roosevelt
turns the law to his conservationist purposes by using it to preserve
natural treasures, like Devil's Tower in Wyoming and the Grand Canyon
in Arizona, which he designates National Monuments.
|
|
| 1906 |
The San Francisco school board
orders segregation of Asian children in the city's public schools,
setting off an international crisis when Japan protests that such
discrimination violates its treaty relationships with the United States. |
|
| 1907 |
Oklahoma enters the union. |
|
| 1907 |
Hoping to repair U.S. relationships
with Japan, President Theodore Roosevelt persuades the San Francisco
school board to reverse its order segregating Asian students. As a
result, Roosevelt wins Japan's agreement to a new immigration policy
that will bar Japanese and Korean laborers from the United States,
thereby effectively extending the Chinese Exclusion Act to all Asian
nationals. |
|
| 1908 |
President Theodore Roosevelt creates
a National Conservation Commission to propose policy for using the
country's natural resources in a way that will maintain their usefulness
into the future. For the commissioners, conservation involves regulated
and efficient exploitation of Western land, not preservation of the
Western landscape for its own sake. |
|
| 1909 |
Under the Dawes Act, 700,000 acres
of former tribal land is opened to white settlers in Washington, Idaho
and Montana. The steady erosion of tribal integrity represented by
the Dawes Act will continue until its repeal in 1934. |
|
| 1909 |
The Selig Polyscope Company leads
the exodus of motion picture companies from the east coast to Los
Angeles, where the mild climate, abundant sunshine and variety of
natural backdrops provide the ingredients for year-round filmmaking
in the era of outdoor production. |
|
| 1909 |
The Industrial Workers of the World,
led by "Big Bill" Haywood, bring the Montana timber industry
to a standstill through a series of strikes reinforced by "direct
action" tactics that include sabotage and arson. This willingness
to use violence as a force for social reform, which some link to the
union's Western heritage, together with a commitment to radical socialism,
sharpens opposition to the Wobblies among industrialists and more
conservative unionists alike. |
|
| 1911 |
The Nestor Company opens the first
film studio in the Hollywood area of Los Angeles, taking over a tavern
closed by temperance activists. Within the decade, "Hollywood"
will become the nickname for an entertainment industry destined to
make the West the source of American popular culture and home of America's
most incandescent cultural stars. |
|
| 1912 |
Arizona and New Mexico enter the
Union. Arizona, Kansas and Oregon give women the right to vote. |
|
| 1913 |
 William
Mulholland completes construction of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, an
engineering marvel that stretches more than 200 miles through mountains
and over desert to bring his city the water it needs to grow. Tapping
the Owens River in the Sierra Nevada, the aqueduct transforms the
once fertile Owens Valley into a watershed for what will one day be
the most populous city in the nation, providing a forecast of issues
that will arise repeatedly as water resources are redistributed across
the West. |
|
| 1913 |
The U.S. Mint issues the "Buffalo"
or "Indian Head" nickel, with an Indian's head shown in
profile on the side inscribed "Liberty" and a buffalo on
the side bearing the motto "E pluribus unum," or "From
many, one." The unconscious irony of the design makes the coin
almost an emblem of the nation's complex relationship to its Western
heritage. |
|
| 1913 |
California adopts the Alien Land
Law, which targets Japanese in the state by making it illegal for
aliens ineligible for citizenship to own farmland or lease it for
more than three years. President Woodrow Wilson voices objection to
the law, fearing its effect on U.S. relations with Japan. |
|
| 1913 |
The Industrial Workers of the World
fail in their pioneering attempt to win better wages and working conditions
for migrant workers at the Durst hop ranch in Wheatland, California,
when police intervention sparks a riot in which four people are killed. |
|
| 1914 |
Socialist mine workers overthrow
the Western Federation of Miners in Butte, Montana, where it has represented
labor interests since 1892. Accusing WFM leaders of election fraud
and collusion with the copper companies, the insurgents blow up the
union hall, leading Montana's governor to send in the state militia
to restore order. While the city is under martial law, company officials
take advantage of the situation by withdrawing union recognition,
leaving miners on both sides of the dispute without job protections. |
|
| 1914 |
 National
Guardsmen and security agents attack striking mine workers at Ludlow,
Colorado, setting fire to their tent city and shooting them down as
they flee. Three men, two women and 13 children are killed in the
"Ludlow Massacre," which company and National Guard officials
defend as necessary to prevent anarchy. |
|
| 1914 |
The Panama Canal is completed,
opening a new economic era in the West as Pacific seaports suddenly
find themselves positioned on the world's busiest sea lanes. |
|
| 1915 |
The first tourist automobiles enter
Yellowstone Park. |
|
| 1915 |
Joe Hill, whose radical protest
songs made him the troubador of the Industrial Workers of the World,
is executed by a firing squad in Salt Lake City, convicted of a murder
no one saw him commit and for which he had no motive. IWW President
"Big Bill" Haywood makes Hill's case a national sensation,
raising a popular outcry that causes even President Wilson to urge
clemency, but without success. On the eve of his execution, Hill sends
Haywood a telegram that confirms his place among the Western heroes
of American radicalism: "Don't waste time mourning. Organize." |
|
| 1916 |
William E. Boeing, a Seattle timber
baron, establishes the Boeing Airplane Company with a contract to
build 50 biplanes for the Navy. His factory is the harbinger of an
aerospace industry that will flourish in the West, drawing billions
in government funds to the region. |
|
| 1916 |
A six-month-long lumber strike
organized by the Industrial Workers of the World leads to violence
in Everett, Washington, where a sheriff's posse makes union members
run a ganlet that leaves the roadway stained with blood, then opens
fire at a protest rally, killing five and wounding 31. Still the Wobblies
press their call for "One Big Union." |
|
| 1917 |
"Buffalo Bill" Cody dies
in Denver, Colorado, where he is buried in a tomb blasted out of Lookout
Mountain. |
|
| 1917 |
The United States declares war
on Germany, entering World War I. |
