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Historical Background

Drives for Self-Government

The California gold rush and the subsequent extension of the mining frontier greatly hastened settlement of the West. They resulted In a large influx of miners and many supporting ranchers, farmers, and businessmen. Creating a new interest in the West, both in Congress and the Nation as a whole, they stimulated emigration of all groups. As soon as miners and settlers moved into the almost-empty regions of many parts of the West, agitation for self-government began. Miners were particularly active and they were a decisive influence in the statehood drives of more than half of the 12 mining States. A. D. Richardson, a journalist who visited Denver in 1859 and noted the political activity there, was led to remark:

Making governments and building towns are the natural employments of the migratory Yankee. He takes to them as instinctively as a young duck to water. Congregate a hundred Americans anywhere beyond the settlements and they immediately lay out a city, frame a state constitution and apply for admission into the Union, while twenty-five of them become candidates for the United States Senate.

Primarily because of the gold rush, California never underwent a Territorial period and became a State under the Compromise of 1850. The compromise also created New Mexico Territory, which included most of present Arizona. Arizonans, after holding a convention in Tucson, in 1856 petitioned Congress for separate Territorial status to no avail. Without success they also sent additional petitions; regularly elected delegates to Congress, who were refused seats; and even drew up a constitution and elected a full slate of Territorial officials. Finally in 1863 Congress yielded to the pressures of Arizonan mining interests, which stressed that precious metals were helping to keep the dollar sound during the war, and created Arizona Territory. Miners' groups were also very active in the long Arizona drive for statehood, which she and New Mexico did not attain until 1912.

Even though the Pike's Peak gold rush in 1859 proved to be a fiasco and the prospects of maintaining a permanent population in present Colorado seemed remote, the miners indicated in a popular referendum that they favored immediate statehood—but it was not to be achieved immediately. For 2 years, until Congress granted Territorial status, the citizens governed themselves through the provisional Jefferson Territory and an informal constitution. After rushes of miners because of new gold and silver strikes, in 1876 Congress granted Colorado statehood.

The drive for self-government in Utah had nothing to do with the development of mining, which was limited anyway and opposed by the Mormon authorities. In 1849, 2 years after the Mormons settled in present Utah, they unsuccessfully petitioned Congress to be admitted as the State of Deseret. The Compromise of 1850, however, granted Utah Territorial status and included in its boundaries most of the present State of Nevada. Friction between the Mormons and Federal officers sent into the Territory, plus controversy over the practice of polygamy, delayed Utah's admission to the Union as a State until 1896.

In 1861 Congress granted Nevada separate Territorial status from Utah, but before long the miners began agitating for statehood. Ironically political necessity rather than mineral wealth resulted in Nevada statehood. The Republican Party, seeking electoral votes in the election of 1864, brought pressure to bear in Congress to admit Nevada to the Union, in time to return a majority for the reelection of Lincoln.

Non-mining influences also brought about Oregon statehood. In 1842 American farmer-emigrants began to move into the vast Oregon country over the Oregon Trail. The following year they formed a provisional government, the only local government except for that of the Hudson's Bay Company, whose Chief Factor, Dr. John McLoughlin, exercised feudal rights derived from the British Crown and aided American settlers. In 1848, only 2 years after Great Britain ceded the Oregon country to the United States and ended more than two decades of joint occupation, Congress created the Oregon Territory, which included present Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and a part of Montana and Wyoming. Five years later Congress removed the present State of Washington and the northern part of Idaho and the northwestern part of Montana from the Oregon Territory and included them in the newly established Washington Territory. When Oregon was admitted to the Union in 1859, the parts of the old Oregon Territory east of the present Oregon boundary were attached to the Washington Territory. In 1863, when Congress created the Idaho Territory, the Washington Territory assumed the present boundaries of the State. Washington did not achieve statehood until 1889.

At the time of the 1860 gold rush to Idaho, it was a part of the Washington Territory. The miners soon clamored for separate Territorial status. They argued that the seat of government of the Washington Territory was too far west and that of the Dakotas too far east. Because of the development of mining and the growing agricultural population, in 1863 Congress authorized Idaho Territory, which included present Idaho, Montana, and most of Wyoming.

Because the Idaho government had difficulty in administering the eastern regions of the Territory, Congress received petitions from the mining camps there sympathetically and in 1864 created Montana Territory. Four years later it founded Wyoming Territory—more because of the completion of the Union Pacific Railroad across its breadth and the establishment of Cheyenne as an important railroad junction than the influence of miners. With the building of the railroads, the influx of population, and the growth of mining and ranching, the Territories of Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho grew rapidly. Congress admitted Montana to the Union as a State in 1889, and Idaho and Wyoming in 1890.

The Dakota Territory, created in 1861, included present North and South Dakota and much of Wyoming and Montana until 1863, when Congress founded Idaho Territory, which absorbed all of present Montana and much of Wyoming. When the Montana Territory was established in 1864, the latter area reverted to the Dakota Territory. In 1868 Congress created the Wyoming Territory and reduced the Dakota Territory to the region comprising present North and South Dakota. At that time the Black Hills region was Indian territory. When prospectors struck gold there in 1874, a rush of miners occurred. They inaugurated a drive for statehood. In 1889 Congress established the States of North and South Dakota.