>The map of the Western US continued to fill in after the Civil War. Nebraska joined the union in 1867, followed by Colorado, the "Centennial State", in 1876. After that no more states were admitted for 13 years as the House was controlled by Democrats for much of that time and they resisted adding new states that were likely to give additional Republican Congressmen and Senators. After Benjamin Harrison's election in 1889 brought about a Republican trifecta, the 51st Congress quickly rammed through the statehoods of the Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and Washington. Utah had to wait some; the Mormon Church renounced polygamy in 1890 but it was six more years before she was granted statehood. The admissions of Oklahoma in 1907 and Arizona and New Mexico in 1912 filled in the continental United States.>The Oklahoma Territory, once an Indian reserve, was opened to settlers and many over-eager ones, "Sooners", tried to enter illegally and were turned back by Army troops; some had their horses shot. Legal settlement was allowed starting April 22, 1889 and a horde of 50,000 poured in and within one day a tent city, Guthrie, sprung up on the prairie with 10,000 inhabiting it. Oklahoma had 60,000 people in it by year's end and was formally made a territory.
>The 1890 census officially declared that the frontier no longer existed. The Homestead Act was never repealed and is still technically on the books, but much of the new land was marginal and of little value for agriculture; farmers who tried usually had to give up the battle against nature after a few years. A lot of this land ended up in Federal hands as part of the national park system, or (since World War II) went to use for military installations. The American people were unnerved to learn that the fabled frontier was gone less than a century after Thomas Jefferson had estimated that it would take 500 years to settle the West. When the nation learned that its land was finite, the seeds of the infant conservation movement were sown.
>>18421678
>>18421678>After Benjamin Harrison's election in 1889 brought about a Republican trifecta, the 51st Congress quickly rammed through the statehoods of the Dakotas, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, and WashingtonTurned out these states were heavily down with the Populist movement in their first decade and weren't reliably Republican until the McKinley-TR years.
>>18421678The delay in admitting Oklahoma, Arizona, and New Mexico had a lot to do with their large Native American and Hispanic populations.
>>18421743Thats a retarded chicano meme. There were less than 100k hispanos in the entire southwest and most weren't mestizos like the kind you see raping elderly Asians in east LA.
>>18421678The Dakotas were also admitted as two states just to give Republicans two free additional Senators.
>>18421678One reason the Republicans gave up on Reconstruction was that they decided the new Western states provided them with enough votes/Congressmen so they didn't need the South to win national elections.
>>18421733At the hundredth meridian, where the great plains begin
>>18421790>they didn't need the South to win national elections.They already didn't. That's why Lincoln's election caused the civil war, because the South realized that too.
