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"In the years from the Civil War to the arrival of railroads in the 1880's, the United States Army was the mainstay of the economy of the Southwest. The military paid tens of millions of dollars to local farmers and ranchers for most of the supplies needed to maintain troops and garrisons. The money encouraged expansion of agriculture and commerce, which in turn transformed frontier regions in Arizona, New Mexico, southern Colorado, and west Texas into homesteads and communities"--Book jacket. "The Southwest developed a mixed economy in an era when laissez-faire capitalism dominated. The army's demand for bread and beef, for instance, created the flour-milling and cattle industries of the Southwest. Moreover, the frontier army was the single largest employer of civilians and relied on them for much of the skilled labor needed in everything from building forts to shoeing horses"--Introd.