History of the American West, 1860-1920: Photographs from the Collection of the Denver Public Library

On January 24, 1848, James Marshall found gold while building a mill on John Sutter’s ranch in northern California. The following year, Americans rushed to the Golden State to make their fortunes, increasing California’s population by 86,000 in just two years. A decade later, a discovery by the Russell party started Colorado’s Pike’s Peak gold rush.

Mining became one of the principal ventures in the American West and attracted individual prospectors and mining companies to all the western states. Some prospectors panned for gold, while others dug for silver. Western companies also mined quartz, copper, zinc, borax, and coal. Search on mining and on the names of minerals for photographs depicting the structures, workers, tools, machines, and processes associated with each type of mining.

Woman gold miner

• Why do you think the discovery of gold drew so many people to the West so quickly?
• What are the similarities and differences between the ways in which different minerals were mined?
• Why was each type of mineral valued? How were the different minerals used?

Most individuals, unable to afford large investments in new technology, soon abandoned their claims. Crude wooden sluices gave way to large-scale hydraulic mining, which used powerful water jets to break the earth. Companies that could afford a large capital investment gained control of most mines in the West, although individual miners, such as Philip O’Rourke, who laid claim to a quartz mine in Idaho, still clung to the hope of striking it rich.

• Why would individuals without a great deal of money quit mining?
• How do you think mining changed as companies took it over?
• How do you think attitudes towards mining might have changed with this transition?
• How did mining affect the natural environment?
• What kinds of attitudes would you expect miners to have had towards the environment?
• What does the growth of mining in the U.S. suggest about a national attitude towards the environment?

Many people made fortunes of their own off of the prospectors. These people opened businesses that provided miners with food, clothing and other necessities. In this way, mining settlements developed into towns and cities, one of the largest being San Francisco. Search on mining town for examples.

As mining production declined and profits fell, mines were abandoned, producing numerous ghost towns, such as Ashcroft, Colorado. Search on ghost town for other abandoned western towns.

• Who came to the West to mine and why? Where did they come from?
• What was it like to be a miner? What were the dangers, difficulties, and benefits of being a miner? How successful were most miners?
• What do you think mining towns were like? What would the inhabitants’ interests, attitudes, resources, and opportunities have been like? How would these factors have affected life in the towns?
• Do you think that mining and mining towns in the West were different from those of the East? How?
• How did mining affect the settlement of the West and its culture? How might they have been different if mining had never taken place, or if it had taken place on a smaller scale?