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Pacific Railroad Act Of 1862
The Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 were a series of acts of Congress that promoted the construction of a "transcontinental railroad" (the First transcontinental railroad, Pacific Railroad) in the United States through authorizing the issuance of government bonds and the Land grant, grants of land to railroad companies. In 1853, the War Department under then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis was authorized by the Congress to conduct Pacific Railroad Surveys, surveys of five different potential transcontinental routes from the Mississippi ranging from north to south. It submitted a massive twelve volume report to Congress with the results in early 1855. However, no route or bill could be agreed upon and passed authorizing the Government's financial support and land grants until the Confederate States of America, secession of the southern states in 1861 removed their opposition to a central route. The Pacific Railroad Act of 1862 () was the original act. Some of its provisions were su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Western United States
The Western United States (also called the American West, the Western States, the Far West, the Western territories, and the West) is List of regions of the United States, census regions United States Census Bureau. As American settlement in the U.S. Manifest destiny, expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the West'' changed. Before around 1800, the crest of the Appalachian Mountains was seen as the American frontier, western frontier. The frontier moved westward and eventually the lands west of the Mississippi River were considered ''the West''. The U.S. Census Bureau's definition of the 13 westernmost states includes the Rocky Mountains and the Great Basin to the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast, and the mid-Pacific islands state, Hawaii. To the east of the Western United States is the Midwestern United States and the Southern United States, with Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The West contains several major biomes, including arid and Sem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grade (slope)
The grade (US) or gradient (UK) (also called stepth, slope, incline, mainfall, pitch or rise) of a physical feature, landform or constructed line is either the elevation angle of that surface to the horizontal plane, horizontal or its tangent. It is a special case of the slope, where zero indicates horizontal plane, horizontality. A larger number indicates higher or steeper degree of "tilt". Often slope is calculated as a ratio of "rise" to "run", or as a fraction ("rise over run") in which ''run'' is the horizontal distance (not the distance along the slope) and ''rise'' is the vertical distance. Slopes of existing physical features such as canyons and hillsides, bank (geography), stream and river banks, and stream bed, beds are often described as grades, but typically the word "grade" is used for human-made surfaces such as roads, landscape grading, roof pitches, rail tracks, railroads, aqueduct (watercourse), aqueducts, and pedestrian or bicycle routes. The grade may refer to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in great-circle distance, straight-line distance from the northernmost part of Western Canada, to New Mexico in the Southwestern United States. Depending on differing definitions between Canada and the U.S., its northern terminus is located either in northern British Columbia's Terminal Range south of the Liard River and east of Rocky Mountain Trench, the Trench, or in the northeastern foothills of the Brooks Range/British Mountains that face the Beaufort Sea coasts between the Canning River (Alaska), Canning River and the Firth River across the Alaska-Yukon border. Its southernmost point is near the Albuquerque metropolitan area, Albuquerque area adjacent to the Rio Grande rift and north of the Sandia–Manzano Mountains, Sandia–Manzano Mountain Range. Being the easternmost portion of the North American Cordillera, the Rockie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sierra Nevada (U
The Sierra Nevada ( ) is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley (California), Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily in Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is part of the American Cordillera, an almost continuous chain of mountain ranges that forms the western "backbone" of the Americas. The Sierra runs north-south, and its width ranges from to across east–west. Notable features include the General Sherman Tree, the largest tree in the world by volume; Lake Tahoe, the largest alpine lake in North America; Mount Whitney at , the highest point in the contiguous United States; and Yosemite Valley sculpted by glaciers from one-hundred-million-year-old granite, containing List of waterfalls in Yosemite National Park, high waterfalls. The Sierra is home to three national parks, twenty-six wilderness areas, ten national forests, and two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
United States General Land Office
The General Land Office (GLO) was an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the United States government responsible for Public domain (land), public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department of the Treasury. Starting with the enactment of the Land Ordinance of 1785, which created the Public Land Survey System, the Treasury Department had already overseen the survey of the Northwest Territory, including what is now the state of Ohio. Placed under the United States Department of the Interior, Department of the Interior when that department was formed in 1849, it was merged with the United States Grazing Service (established in 1934) to become the Bureau of Land Management on July 16, 1946. History The GLO oversaw the surveying, platted, platting, and sale of the public lands in the Western United States and administered the Homestead Act and the Preem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Right-of-way (transportation)
A right of way (also right-of-way) is a specific route that people, animals, vehicles, watercraft, or utility lines travel, or the legal status that gives them the right to do so. Rights-of-way in the physical sense include controlled-access highways, railroads, canals, hiking paths, bridle paths for horses, bicycle paths, the routes taken by high-voltage lines (also known as wayleave), utility tunnels, or simply the paved or unpaved local roads used by different types of traffic. The term ''highway'' is often used in legal contexts in the sense of "main way" to mean any public-use road or any public-use road or path. Some are restricted as to mode of use (for example, pedestrians only, pedestrians, horse and cycle riders, vehicles capable of a minimum speed). Rights-of-way in the legal sense (the right to pass through or to operate a transportation facility) can be created in a number of different ways. In some cases, a government, transportation company, or conservation n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacramento, California
Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat, seat of Sacramento County, California, Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento River, Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 population of 524,943 makes it the fourth-most populous city in Northern California, List of largest California cities by population, the sixth-most populous in the state, the List of United States cities by population, ninth-most populous state capital, and the List of United States cities by population, 35th most populous city in the United States. Sacramento is the seat of the California Legislature and the governor of California. Sacramento is also the cultural and economic core of the Sacramento metropolitan area, Greater Sacramento area, which at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census had a population of 2,680,831, the fourth-largest S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sacramento River
The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta and San Francisco Bay. The river drains about in 19 California County (United States), counties, mostly within the fertile agricultural region bounded by the California Coast Ranges, Coast Ranges and Sierra Nevada known as the Sacramento Valley, but also extending as far as the volcanic plateaus of Northeastern California. Historically, its watershed has reached as far north as south-central Oregon where the now, primarily, endorheic basin, endorheic (closed) Goose Lake (Oregon-California), Goose Lake rarely experiences southerly outflow into the Pit River, the most northerly tributary of the Sacramento. The Sacramento and its wide natural floodplain were once abundant in fish and other aquatic creatures, notably one of the southernm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Omaha, Nebraska
Omaha ( ) is the List of cities in Nebraska, most populous city in the U.S. state of Nebraska. It is located in the Midwestern United States along the Missouri River, about north of the mouth of the Platte River. The nation's List of United States cities by population, 41st-most-populous city, Omaha had a population of 486,051 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The eight-county Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area, which extends into Iowa, has approximately 1 million residents and is the Metropolitan statistical area#United States, 55th-largest metro area in the United States. Omaha is the county seat of Douglas County, Nebraska, Douglas County. Omaha's pioneer period began in 1854, when the city was founded by speculators from neighboring Council Bluffs, Iowa. The city was founded along the Missouri River, and a crossing called Lone Tree Ferry earned the city its nickname, the "Gateway to the West". Omaha introduced this new West to the world in 1898, when it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Council Bluffs, Iowa
Council Bluffs is a city in and the county seat of Pottawattamie County, Iowa, Pottawattamie County, Iowa, United States. The population was 62,799 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the state's List of cities in Iowa, tenth most populous city, and the most populous city in Southwest Iowa. The Omaha–Council Bluffs metropolitan area, Omaha metropolitan region of which Council Bluffs is a part, is the 58th largest in the United States, with an estimated population of 983,969 (2023). It is located on the east bank of the Missouri River, across from Omaha, Nebraska. Until about 1853 Council Bluffs was known as Kanesville. Kanesville was the historic starting point of the Mormon Trail. Kanesville is also the northernmost anchor town of the Emigrant Trail, other emigrant trails because there was a steam-powered boat which ferried the settlers' wagons and cattle across the Missouri River. In 1869, the first transcontinental railroad to California was connected ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Missouri River
The Missouri River is a river in the Central United States, Central and Mountain states, Mountain West regions of the United States. The nation's longest, it rises in the eastern Centennial Mountains of the Bitterroot Range of the Rocky Mountains of southwestern Montana, then flows east and south for before entering the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri. The river drains Semi-arid climate, semi-arid Drainage basin, watershed of more than 500,000 square miles (1,300,000 km2), which includes parts of ten U.S. states and two Canadian provinces. Although a tributary of the Mississippi, the Missouri River is slightly longer and carries a comparable volume of water, though a fellow tributary (Ohio River) carries more water. When combined with the lower Mississippi River, it forms the List of rivers by length, world's fourth-longest river system. For over 12,000 years, people have depended on the Missouri River and its Tributary, tributaries as a source of sustena ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
