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..