Existing comment:
Degrading the Environment
Herds of buffalo flee away from the railroad tracks as men on the train shoot at them.
'The Far West -- Shooting Buffalo on the Line of the Kansas-Pacific Railroad' from Beyond the Mississippi, 1867.
The Transcontinental Railroad dramatically altered ecosystems. Its trains brought thousands of hunters who killed the bison Native peoples relied on for food and rituals. The tracks disrupted land where livestock grazed. Railroad laborers and settlers alike chopped down trees for wood.
Can you identify ways that the railroad would have to cut through the western landscape to connect its route? |