The Comstock Load (silver) found in Nevada from 1860 - 1890... 1874 - gold discovered in the Black Hills of Dakota Territory... The Anaconda copper mine - 1881 in Montana... The Cattle Kingdom - the western cattle industry was Mexican and Texan by ancestry. With the advent of the railroad, cattle were herded and driven along the "Chisholm Trail" to Abilene, Kansas. Most of the cowboys in the early years were veterans of the Confederate army. The next largest group of cowboys consisted of African Americans. Increasingly, the structure of the cattle economy became corporate. But this open range industry never recovered from the severe winters of 1886 and 1887. Women's "suffrage" (voting rights) began to appear in some western states/territories. The romances of the west and cowboy culture... White policies regarding Indian tribes" : Concentration, 1887... Congress establishes the "Indian Peace Commission" and the "Bureau of Indian Affairs." Great tribes such as the Arapaho, Cheyenne and Sioux are forced onto desolate reservation lands. The decimation of the buffalo and the livelihood for many Indian tribes... After the Civil War, the white demand for buffalo hides becomes a national phenomenon. Railroad companies hired rifleman to kill large numbers of buffalo. Thinning the buffalo herds served two purposes: to clear more land for the railroad and to starve the Indians. In 1865, there had been at least 15 million buffalo.....by 1875 fewer than 1,000 buffalo survived.