Geography
5th grade Social Studies
Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is an inland saline lake, part of the larger Colorado
Desert in Southern California, USA.
The Salton Sea
It was created by accident in 1905 when increased flooding on the Colorado River
allowed water to crash through canal barriers and for the next 18 months the entire flow of the Colorado River rushed downhill into the Salton Trough. By the time engineers were
finally able to stop the breaching water in 1907, the Salton Sea had been born- 45 miles long and 20 miles wide-equaling 110 miles of shoreline.
Chisholm Trail
The “Chisholm trail” was a dirt trail used in the latter 19th century to drive cattle overland from ranches in Texas to
Kansas railheads. The trail stretched from southern Texas across the Red River, and on to the railhead of the Kansas Pacific Railway in Abilene, Kansas, where the cattle would
be sold and shipped eastward.
Chisholm Trail
The trail is named for Jesse Chisholm who had built several trading posts in what is
now western Oklahoma before the American Civil War. He died in 1868, too
soon to ever drive cattle on the trail.
Jesse Chisholm
The Great Western Trail
The Great Western Cattle Trail-also known as the Dodge City Trail and the Old Texas Trail-was utilized from 1874 for the movement of cattle to markets East. The trail began at Bandera, Texas and
ended, most often, in Dodge City, Kansas. The entire trail extended from southern Texas to the Canadian border. Between 10 and 12 million cattle were driven north from Texas into Dodge
City. It was the western branch of the Chisholm Trail.
Grand Canyon
The Grand Canyon is a steep-sided gorge carved by the Colorado River in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is largely contained within the Grand Canyon National Park-one of the first national parks in the
U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt was a major proponent of preservation of the Grand Canyon area, and visited on numerous
occasions to hunt and enjoy the scenery.
Great Salt Lake
Great Salt Lake, located in the northern part of Utah, is the largest salt lake in the
western hemisphere, the fourth-largest terminal lake in the world, and the 37th
largest lake on Earth.
Mojave Desert
The Mojave Desert, locally referred to as the High Desert, occupies a significant portion of southern California and smaller parts of central California, southwestern Utah, southern Nevada, and
northwestern Arizona, in the United States. It is named after the Mohave tribe of Native Americans. The Mojave Desert receives
less than 10 inches of rain a year.
Kitty Hawk
Kitty Hawk was made famous on December 17, 1903, when the Wright brothers made
the first controlled, powered airplane flights four miles away near the sand dunes known
as the Kill Devil Hills.
1901. Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Wilbur Wright and glider just after landing. The fogging of the negative at the bottom of the frame, combined with the skid marks in the sand from an earlier landing, create the illusion that the glider is still flying.
Pittsburgh
The growth of Pittsburgh and its economy was caused by the extensive trade of steel. The American Civil War boosted the city’s economy with increased production of iron and armaments. Steel
production began by 1875, when Andrew Carnegie founded a company, which eventually evolved into the Carnegie Steel
Company. During World War II, Pittsburgh produced 95 million tons of steel..