1873 in the United States

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1873 in the United States
Decades:	1850s 1860s – 1870s – 1880s 1890s
Years:	1870 1871 1872 – 1873 – 1874 1875 1876
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37 stars (1867 – 1877)
Timeline of United States history History of the United States (1865–1918)

Events from the year 1873 in the United States.

Contents

Incumbents

January 1 – The California Penal Code goes into effect.
January 17 – Indian Wars: The first Battle of the Stronghold is fought during the Modoc War.
February 20 – The University of California opens its first medical school in San Francisco, California.
March 1 – E. Remington and Sons of Ilion, New York start production of the first practical typewriter.
March 3 – Censorship: The U.S. Congress enacts the Comstock Law, making it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, or lascivious" books through the mail.
March 4 – President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant begins his second term.
March 15 – The Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity is founded at the University of Massachusetts.
March 22 – Emancipation Day for Puerto Rico: Slaves are freed (with a few exceptions).

April 15–17 – Indian Wars: The Second Battle of the Stronghold is fought.
May – Henry Rose exhibits barbed wire at an Illinois county fair, which is taken up by Joseph Glidden and Jacob Haish, who invent a machine to mass-produce it.
May 20 – Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis received United States patent#139121 for using copper rivets to strengthen the pockets of denim work pants. Levi Strauss & Co. began manufacturing the famous Levi's brand of jeans, using fabric from the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company in Manchester, New Hampshire.
May 23 – The Preakness Stakes horse race first runs in Baltimore, Maryland.
June 4 – Indian Wars: The Modoc War ends with the capture of Captain Jack.

July 21 – At Adair, Iowa, Jesse James and the James-Younger Gang pull off the first successful train robbery in the American West (US$3,000 from the Rock Island Express).
August 4 – Indian Wars: While protecting a railroad survey party in Montana, the Seventh Cavalry, under Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer, clashes for the first time with the Sioux, near the Tongue River (only 1 man on each side is killed).
September 17 – The Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College, later The Ohio State University, opens its doors with 25 students, including 2 women.
September 18 – The New York stock market crash triggers the Panic of 1873, part of the Long Depression.

December 15 – Women of Fredonia, New York march against the retail liquor dealers in town to inaugurate the Woman's Crusade of 1873–74. This leads to the creation of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union.