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Figure 29: River mining, Grand Mountain Bar, California, circa 1856.

(Photograph courtesy of George Eastman House, Rochester, New

York)

Mining and Western Settlement PatternsDr. Randall Rohe

Dr. Randall Rohe is a Professor of Geography at the University of Wisconsin-Waukesha.

He is the author of numerous articles on the history of mining and mining landscapes,

including "Gold Mining Landscapes of the West." Following is a copy of the paper he

presented at the Settler Communities in the West Symposium.

His article traces the effects on the western landscape of precious metal mining and

especially the effects of various forms of technology. Different types of mining and refining

methods have various remainshead frames at mine entrances, the cut-up landscape of

hydraulicking, and the torn-up stream beds from dredging are but three of many examples

of historic mining resources.

I am going to try, as best possible in the space allowed, to provide an overview of historic

mining in the American West between 1848 and 1942. My focus will be solely on gold and

silver mining which initiated settlement in much of the West and greatly influenced so muchof the region's subsequent development. Even with this focus, realize that much had to beleft out. The works cited in the end notes provide much more detail on the topics that are

discussed in this overview.

Most gold occurs in the form of lode or placer deposits. The term "placer" probablyoriginated from the Spanishplaza de oro, a place of gold, and simply meant a surface

working. Most placer deposits consist of gravels that contain gold that has been freed fromthe rock by weathering and erosion. Lode deposits consist of gold and silver still contained

within the rock. Gold, which is chemically inert, retains its original form while being eroded,transported, and deposited, and therefore readily forms placers. Silver, on the other hand,which combines readily with most acids and forms soluble compounds, is not ordinarily

found in placer deposits. Placer mining remained the chief source of gold until 1873, when

lode mining surpassed it in importance. While lode mining began in California during


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feet wide and six thousand feet long.6

As the surface or recent placers neared exhaustion, prospecting moved to the gravel hills of

"tertiary gravels." The "tertiary gravels" were extensive gold bearing deposits laid down bystreams approximately fifty million years ago and subsequently buried by as much as fifteen

hundred feet of younger gravels and volcanic material. These "deep" or "buried gravels"were first worked by driftingthe excavation of auriferous gravel by shafts, tunnels,

galleries, and gangways, and extraction of the gold by one of the traditional methods, usuallysluicing. The early drifting operations consisted of shafts ten to thirty-five feet deep from

which extended drifts six to twenty-eight feet long. From such crude beginnings, driftingevolved into a distinct branch of mining. Tunnels one thousand to two thousand feet longbecame common and some approached three thousand feet. Some of the California drift

mines eventually reached lengths of over two miles and extended over a mile underground.The relatively extensive tertiary gravels of California enabled drifting to reach an importance

rarely found on later mining frontiers. The Big Dipper Mine, Iowa Hill, California, which

produced $1.2 million in gold, is representative of the large scale drift mines of the 1870s

and 1880s.7

In the 1850s the development of hydraulicking afforded another means of working the "deepdiggings." Hydraulic mining utilized a jet of water issuing under high pressure from a nozzleto excavate and wash the gravel through sluices that caught the gold and disposed of the

tailings. Hydraulicking enabled four or five men to do the work of fifty men using the

traditional methods. It was mass production applied to mining. Large scale, heavily

capitalized operations became common.8

One final major form of placer mining developed during the nineteenth century. Many of thelarge rivers that drained the goldfields contained millions of yards of low grade auriferousgravels. The means to mine them came in the 1890s with the advent of the gold dredge. A

dredge consisted of a flatbottom boat equipped with excavating and gold-washing

machinery. The most prominent feature of the dredge was the massive bow ladder or boom,around which circled the endless bucket line which did the excavating. Some dredgesshowed a profit with a recovery of gold of only nine cents a cubic yard. Further, a dredge

had the capability of working the entire unobstructed length of river channel.

In May 1895, before a large gathering of onlookers at Bannack, Montana, the Fielding L.

Graves, the first successful American connected-bucket dredge, slipped into the waters of

Grasshopper Creek, inaugurating "the Dawn of a New Era of Placer Mining Methods,"according to a local newspaper editor. A hydroelectric generator, supplied from a water line,

powered the dredge. The Graves, equipped with five cubic feet buckets and a fifteen-foot

ladder, dug to a depth of twenty-five feet.9

By the turn of the century, it was clear that dredging would revolutionize placer mining. In1900, twenty-seven gold dredges operated in the U.S. (sixteen in California, six in Idaho and

five in Montana), and produced more than $520,000. Dredging peaked in the teens. In 1914

almost eighty dredges operated in various parts of the West. Even the early dredges movedeight hundred to fifteen hundred cubic yards of material daily. By 1912 dredges that handledupwards of ten thousand cubic yards a day existed. The last dredges to operate in the West

were huge affairs that reached depths of seventy-five to one hundred feet.10


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Placer mining eventually led to the discovery and exploitation of hardrock or lode deposits.

The first California lode mine began operations near Mariposa in 1849. Lode miningrequired tunnels, shafts, and other excavations to remove the gold and silver bearing ores.The U.S. Bureau of Mines (USBM) counted over three thousand shafts, tunnels, pits, and

prospect holes in a recent survey of the Leadville district in Colorado. The actual extent ofthe underground workings exceeds 250 miles. Until about 1875, the principal tools of the

lode miners were hand drills and black powder. Under such technology, mining advanced

about nine to ten feet a day. During the 1850s, the deepest shafts in the California lode mineswent down only about three hundred feet. Often a deposit was worked by a tunnel into ahillside or even an open cut. The introduction of machine drills and dynamite, however,

made it possible for mining operations to proceed much faster.11

Unlike placer deposits, the ores removed by lode mining required considerable processing.

To accomplish this, the early miners used an arrastra, a circular depression half filled with

mineral-bearing rock, surrounded by a coping wall to hold in the ore. A supported centerpole had a bar that extended beyond the coping. The bar, which could be rotated about thepole, was attached at one end to a horse or mule and to one or two large, heavy stones on

the other. As the animal circled the arrastra, it dragged the stones across the ore and groundit up. Later, water power replaced horse and mule power, and in hundreds of miningoperations throughout the West the waterwheel became a common sight. Although a crude

means of ore processing, the arrastra had a great spatial and temporal use. It saw use in

mining districts from California to the Black Hills and from northern Idaho to southernArizona. As late as 1871, over 290 of them operated in California, Arizona, Nevada,

Oregon, Montana, and Idaho. Some were used even as late as the 1930s and '40s. As a

result, today the remains of arrastras are found throughout the West.12

Next came the stamp mill. Simple but effective, stamp mills crushed the rocks under heavy

iron pestles whose movement was controlled by a cam shaft. Though the noisy machines had

been used for centuries in Europe, in 1851 California miners made a notable improvement,adding replaceable shoes and mounting them to rotate freely and thus wear out evenlya

feature which gained world-wide acceptance. Employed all through the West, a few stampmills in various stages of decay dot the region's mining districts.

The first stamp mills consisted of a series of wood stampers, each covered with iron, that

fitted into iron boxes into which the gold quartz was placed. By utilizing cogs of cams, thestampers fell into the boxes with a pile-driver action, ultimately crushing the ore to a fine

consistency. The larger the operation, the more stampers were required. Many later mills had

a hundred or more steampowered stamps.13

Mills varied widely according to local conditions, particularly the composition of the ores;yet many features were common. Though silver refining was usually more complex thangold, both metals often occurred in the same rocks and were treated similarly. The

machinery reduced the ore by successive stages, starting with the rock breaker, continuing

with the stamp mill, and passing on to the pans and settling devices. Among the many piecesof equipment utilized were concentrating tables, pulverizing mutters and dies, and amalgam

retorts. Chemicals, including mercury, were also added at various stages.14

GOLD RUSH MIGRATIONS AND GOLDFIELD POPULATIONS


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Almost all of the American gold rushes began with the discovery of placer gold. Placerdeposits offered the possibility of quick and large returns with relatively simple miningmethods, and thereby stimulated extensive migrations. A huge and rapid influx of population

perhaps best characterizes the American gold rushes. The California gold rush amplyillustrates these characteristics. Within a few months of the discovery of gold in 1848, the

vanguard of the rush appeared. Less than ten thousand people migrated to the Californiagoldfields that year. The combined total for the rush of 1849-50, however, probably

approached 250,000. Whatever the exact dimensions of the California gold rush, it produceda dramatic increase in population. California contained a population of perhaps fourteenthousand Euro-Americans in 1848. From this figure, the population increased to more than

100,000 by January 1, 1850.15

Each gold rush, to a greater or lesser degree, possessed a cosmopolitan quality. Of the

American gold rushes, the California rush attained the greatest degree of ethnic diversity.The discovery of gold in California attracted people from almost every part of the world.According to the 1850 census, the foreign element, not including Spanish Californians,

accounted for some 24 percent of the population, a figure over twice as great as for the

United States as a whole. Despite their ethnic diversity, native-born Americans dominatedmost of the gold rushes.16

As might be expected, young males dominated the mining rushes to an extreme. Partial

records for 1849 indicate that males formed approximately 97 percent of the California rushoverland and more than 98 percent of the rush by sea. The majority of women who arrived

in 1849 resided outside the goldfields.The rush of 1850 saw a slight increase in the numberof female participants. That year females accounted for almost 7 percent of the rush by seaand perhaps 5 percent of the overland rush. The census of 1850 for California placed the

female population at less than 8 percent; in mining counties the proportion fell below 2

percent. The census of 1852 revealed that females accounted for approximately 13 percent

of the population. In most of the mining counties, females accounted for 5 percent or less ofthe population. In Grass Valley-Nevada City the sex ratio remained almost twice the nationalaverage as late as 1870. The gold rushes to Colorado, Montana, Idaho and elsewhere also

were dominated by males.17

Besides being dominantly male, the participants of the gold rushes generally were below

middle age, "both because the venture had appealed originally to young men and because thetrip to California and the life in the mines were too trying to be endured by those who no

longer possessed the recuperative powers of youth." A contemporary observer thought thatperhaps two-thirds of those involved in the California rush between 1849 and 1851 averagedbetween twenty and thirty-five years of age. According to the census of 1850, more than half

the white males ranged between twenty and thirty years old. The post-California rushes

displayed a similar age distribution. Over 50 percent of the total population of Colorado in1860, for example, was between twenty and thirty years of age, 85 percent was between

twenty and forty years of age.18

Time after time, the placer deposits proved too limited for the large numbers brought by the

gold rusha fact reflected in the characteristic mobility displayed by a gold rushpopulation. One recent historian estimates that up to 80 percent of the maximum population

of a new mining district consisted of drifters. In a memorable simile, Hugh H. Bancroft


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described the fluidity of the mining population of Idaho: "The miners of Idaho were likequicksilver. A mass of them dropped in any locality, broke up into individual globules, and

ran off after any atom of gold in their vicinity. They stayed nowhere longer than the goldattracted them." The mobility characteristic of mining resulted in large turnovers within thepopulation of any given mining settlement. Descriptions of an embryonic mining town

invariably contained phrases like men "coming in and going out every day" and "full of

transient people. " Of the population of Grass Valley-Nevada City, California in 1850, onlyabout five out of every hundred remained in 1856. The portion of the population devoted tomining proved the most unstable. Of those engaged in mining in Nevada City-Grass Valley in

1850, only about 4 percent remained in 1856. The professional and artisan classes provedless transient. Even among these groups, however, four out of five left between

1850-1856.19

The bulk of the miners in most placer regions were initially native-born Americans and

European immigrants, with Americans in the majority. The American dominance of the

goldfields often ended or considerably lessened at the end of the flush production period.The exhaustion of the rich surface placers necessitated the employment of capital on a largescale and corporate methods to work the deep diggings. Many of the original miners turned

to other occupations or moved to new mining regions. In area after area, men of foreignbirth replaced the original miners after the flush production period. Chinese usually

supplanted the original miners in the placer areas. The Chinese excelled in saving gold,especially fine gold, under difficult conditions. They worked the deposits either abandoned

or considered worthless by white miners and added thousands of acres to the total areaworked by the traditional methods. As yields declined, almost every placer region received

its complement of Chinese, who became ubiquitous in the mining West.20

Before the California gold rush, Chinese migration to the U.S. was negligible. In the twenty

years, from 1820 to l840, only eleven Chinese immigrated to America, and from 1840-1850

but 335. Of the latter, three hundred arrived in California during 1849. In 1852 Chinese

immigration increased dramatically, to fifteen thousand to twenty thousand a year. In the1850s and 60s the Chinese population of the United States was concentrated almost entirely

in California with approximately 80 percent of that in the goldfields. During their first decadein the West, most Chinese worked in the mines, about 75 percent of them by the early

1860s. The Chinese, by the 1870s, had spread to almost every major placer area of the West.The late 1860s and early 1870s, in fact, probably marked the near peak of Chinese mining. In

1870, mining employed less than a third of the Chinese population, but the Chineserepresented over 25 percent of all miners. In some individual states, the Chinese accounted

for one-half to almost two-thirds of all miners.21

Among the hardrock miners, there was a tendency for the foreign born to undertake themanual labor and underground work, while Americans specialized in the operation of the

machinery and other complicated equipment. The most experienced miner in any deep minebefore the early 1860s was likely to have been a Mexican, who had previously worked in themines of northern Mexico. Starting in the mid 1860s, the Cornish and Irish made up the

majority of the miners in the most important lode districts. During the 1860s, mining inCornwall fell on hard times that became a severe depression during the 70s. At least aquarter and perhaps a third of the mining population left Cornwall between 1871 and 1881.

Many of them migrated to the mining districts of the American West. With a long experience

in lode mining, the Cornish contributed much to the improvement of mining methods. The


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Cornish were adept at sinking shafts and drilling tunnels, at timbering and blasting, at rock

drilling, and mine drainage. "Wherever a pit was found, a cousin Jack would be there diggingaway at the bottom of it." At least a tenth of the mining population of Nevada during the1860s and 1870s was Cornish, with notable concentrations along the Comstock at Virginia

City, Gold Hill, and Silver City. Almost everywhere there was a lode mine, however, there

would be at least some Cornish. After the decline of the Comstock, the majority of theCornish there "sought new fields to conquer, scattering in all directions: Butte, Montana;Leadville, Colorado; Tombstone, Arizona; Bodie, California." The peak of Cornish

participation in mining occurred during the late 1880s and early 1890s. Thereafter SouthernEuropeans, especially Italians, or Eastern Europeans, such as the Poles, became

prominent.22

TRANSPORTATION AND SUPPLY

Great distances characteristically separated the goldfields from existing settlement. The rapiddevelopment of the Western goldfields, therefore, depended on an equally rapiddevelopment of transportation routes. While each rush brought about the use of different

routes, the development of those routes followed a similar pattern. The gold rushes brought

an accelerated use and fixed the location of many established routes. At other times, themining rushes developed alternatives and cutoffs to the existing routes. Many of those routes

survive to the present in one way or another. Portions of U.S. Highways 26, 30, 40, 50 and

other important roads, for example, traverse the general line of the California Trail.Especially in the eastern plains, time and man have nearly obliterated all traces of theoverland routes to the goldfields. In other places, grass-grown ruts extend for miles. In some

areas, iron-rimmed wagon wheels left distinct cuts in solid rock.23

The significance of the gold rushes to the evolution of transportation probably best displays

itself in the establishment of routes within the goldfields. For the most part, the golddiscoveries occurred in largely unsettled areas devoid of all but the most primitive

transportation routes. The advent of mining, especially lode mining, however, caused therapid development and expansion of transportation. With lode mining the miners had to haulore down to the mills and supplies back to the mines and built narrow, crude roads along thesteep valleys. Many of the secondary roads and mining trails between the mines and the mills

and smelters of the mining towns have survived in some way.24

The rugged and steep slopes in many sections of the Colorado Rockies made thetransportation of the ore from the mines to the mills very difficult and expensive. A solution

used in a number of areas was the aerial tramway. With the end of mining, of course, thetramways lost their usefulness and were abandoned. Often, however, the line of their routesis still visible in the present landscape, especially where fills or cuts were required.

Sometimes, ruins of the tramway itself still survive.25

Pack trains provided the most universal immediate answer for the demand for supplies

created by the influx of population occasioned by mining. The high cost of this type oftransportation, however, soon induced the construction of roads to reduce freight costs. Theextension of wagon roads pushed packing depots farther into the goldfields. Eventually,

roads connected most of the main mining settlements with their supply bases. Pack trains,thereafter, operated only where sparse population, rugged terrain or other factors excluded

profitable road construction.26


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While geology restricted gold mining almost exclusively to the Trans-Mississippian West, its

influence transcended the goldfields and the West itself. The nature of mining prevented itsself-sufficiency. As a result, mining acted as a stimulus and support for other economicactivities, including transportation, trade, agriculture, lumbering, and manufacturing. Mining

supplied the urban centers, markets, and capital necessary for the development andexpansion of transportation to and within the mining regions, and resulted in the

development of outfitting and supply towns and attendant transportation routes.

The development of supply points during the California gold rush illustrates the basicprinciples that repeat themselves over and over throughout the mining West during the

nineteenth century. The majority of goods from the Atlantic seaboardthe principal sourceof supplies for Californiareached the state via ocean steamers or sailing vessels. From thestart, San Francisco assumed the role of leading port and major supply center for the

California goldfields. San Francisco merchants eventually shipped much of these goods via

steam or sail up the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers into the Central Valley. Herenumerous points aspired to become secondary supply centers. Eventually, of all theaspirants, Sacramento, Stockton, and Marysville became the principal interior distributing

centers for the mines. From Sacramento, Stockton, and Marysville, pack trains and wagonshauled supplies to the larger mining towns serving as trans-shipment points. The "heads of

whoa navigation" or sub-depots were usually the larger and strategically located mining

towns like Auburn. From the sub-depots, pack trains carried the supplies to the various

mining camps of the surrounding districts.27

The growth of supply centers in the rest of the West approximated that of California. In the1860s, for example, important gold discoveries occurred in Idaho and northeastern Oregon.These goldfields naturally looked to Portland for supplies. Although it remained subordinate

to San Francisco as a port, Portland developed into an important distributing point.

Ocean-going steamers and sailing vessels either carried goods from San Francisco to

Portland, or to a lesser degree directly to Portland. From Portland, river steamerstransported the supplies up the Columbia and Snake Rivers into the interior of the

Northwest. At various upriver points, a number of towns developed as trans-shipmentpoints. These included The Dalles, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Wallula on the Columbia and

Lewiston on the Snake. From these points, wagons or pack trains carried the goods to

larger, strategically located mining towns like Idaho City, and then from there to the outlying

mining settlements.28

With time, railroads played an increasing role in supplying the mining areas. The extension ofrailroads into and through the West especially facilitated the development of lode mining. Itmade it much easier to transport heavy mining and milling equipment, coal and other fuels,

timber and lumber, and other supplies to the mining districts, and to bring out the ore orbullion. Prices for all commodities, including labor, began to decline. Often the end of miningprecipitated a significant decline in the traffic on the railroads that served the mining regions.

Sometimes, in fact, it was enough to eventually cause the abandonment of the line. 29

URBANIZATION

Unlike previous frontiers, the mining frontier was a decidedly urban one. There were severaltypes of mining communities. The most common was the camp: a straggling settlement that

might vary in size from a few houses to a small town. More impressive was the mining town,


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Figure 30: Placerville, California, 1850. Not long

after the date of this photograph, Borthwick

described Placerville as one long straggling street ofclapboard houses and log cabins. Unlike many early

mining towns, it survives to the present. (Photographcourtesy of the Wells Fargo Bank History Room)

a larger settlement with a somewhat less ephemeral existence, and some pretensions tosubstantiality. Mining settlements associated with the traditional methods in California

usually had a population of less than five hundred, commonly less than one hundred.30

Settlements associated with river mining proved particularly transitory. In 1858, the SanFrancisco Evening Bulletin described one such scene:

Upon a single stream within a distance of a few miles, during the busy season

in the fall, four or five thousand miners may be employed. Canvas towns, withstores, express office, and drinking and eating saloons, spring up like magic,

and are noisy and populous. But the first winter rain destroys the whole busy

picture. The flumes, wheels and tools, or as much of them as is possible, are

hastily broken up, taken out of the river . . . and shortly afterwards sold at

auction . . . The miners pack up their things and hasten to their winter claims.31

Settlements brought into existence bythe exploitation of deep gravels

typically proved larger and more

stable; populations of several thousandwere not unusual.

The exploitation of gold and silver

gave life to thousands of settlements

throughout the West. The Californiatown pictured in Figure 30 was laidout along a winding pack mule trail in

1848. It went through a series ofnamesDry Diggings, Old Dry

Diggings, Ravine City, and Hangtown.

After six years of growth and apopulation of some two thousand,Hangtown gained incorporation as

Placerville. Not long after the date ofthis photo, Borthwick described

Placerville as one long straggling streetof clapboard houses and log cabinsa street that was in many places knee-deep in mud

with debris strewn everywherethe result of mining operations. Typically, earlyphotographs and sketches of mining towns indicate a scarcity of timber. Often, in fact, theyshow only a few scattered trees with no undergrowth and little or no dense growth nearby.

The streams on which the town stood became the gutters for their garbage and sewage. A

classic photo of Central City, Colorado, shows outhouses built on stilts over Clear Creek.Pollution became so bad in Telluride, Colorado, that the city council hired men to remove

dead animals, garbage, and other refuse from the San Miguel River.32

Mining settlements widely separated in time and space bore a remarkable resemblance.

Mining town after mining town evolved similarlya morphological development thatdiffered noticeably from most Eastern towns. The typical mining town began with its

commercial area closely built up, along streets specially laid out for its development. Manymining towns, in fact, first consisted of little more than a compact business district on a

single street. Early Deadwood, South Dakota, for instance, reportedly contained "two


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Figure 31: Wall Street, Deadwood, Dakota Territory,Fall 1877. (Photograph by F. Jay Haynes, courtesy ofthe Haynes Foundation Collection, Montana

business houses in every twenty foot front" (Figure 31). As with most mining towns, the

business district of Deadwood extended along its main street and contained a multiplicity ofestablishments, seemingly a far greater number than warranted by its population. Behind theprincipal streets and the business district stood the majority of the residences. The miners,

however, often built their residences apart from the main part of town, scattered along the

ravines and hills for convenient access to their claims.33

Corresponding with the rapid appearance of towns came an acceleration of the wholeprocess of settlement. Businessmen, tradesmen, and other typical inhabitants of establishedsettlement appeared almost simultaneously with the miners. Within a relatively short timecame schools, churches, theaters, and other trademarks of civilization. Early descriptions of

Deadwood clearly display the acceleration of the settlement process on the mining frontier.In the span of five months, Deadwood evolved from a pine forest to a city of over three

thousand people, stretching for more than a mile. It contained "nearly 200 business houses, amunicipal government, mayor, board of alderman, police and all the other officers necessary

for the administration of justice."34

Victorian-style architecture dominated the mining towns. Styles that evolved over many

years in the East all appeared within a relatively short time in the mining settlements,creating an eclectic mixture. New styles from the East as well as earlier styles from older

mining areas influenced the architectural development of a mining settlement. The mining

towns were, in effect, architectural melting pots in which the major styles overlapped, fused,

and were sometimes combined.35

The mining frontier itself producedlittle that was new architecturally.Various Eastern architectural styles,

occasionally modified to fit local

conditions, characterized most miningcommunities. In Colorado,consideration for climate notably

altered the Eastern styles. Oneobserver noted that the heavy snow

loads required increased roof pitches

and bracing, and the mountain climatemade porches largely ornamental andcaused a reduction in their size. The

difficulty of constructing basementsresulted in their elimination. The often

small residential lots resulting fromthe rugged terrain necessitated the

crowding of homes together. Homeswere often only two or three feet

apart, eliminating the use of sidewindows. Otherwise, the basic floorplans that served middle-class

Midwesterners also found common

acceptance in the mature mining

towns.36


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Historical Society, Helena, Montana, #H-119)As the mining settlements grew, the

architecture reflected their growth and change. First, substantial wood-frame buildingsbecame common and later brick and stone gained increasingly widespread use. Helena,Montana was founded on 30 October 1864, and by March 1865, it contained a population of

one thousand. A photo of Bridge Street in 1865 clearly displays the typical architecture of anearly mining town (Figure 32). In the upper right-hand corner, note the low log cabins that

served as residences. The business establishments, too, were largely of logsthough larger

and with frame false fronts. A contemporary observer described Helena in 1865 as consistingof a narrow street between double files of straggling log cabins. Four years later, the sameobserver noted, "Low log-cabins with their dirt-roofs have been replaced by substantial

stone buildings and frame structures, the streets have been graded and supplied with plank

walks."37

Wherever they settled, the Chinese grouped together in Chinese camps or Chinatowns. The

Chinese generally set up camps characterized by small tents and brush houses near theirclaims, generally on the banks of a stream. The manuscript census of 1850 showed aconspicuous lack of large Chinese camps in the mining areas of California. Later, in groups

of a hundred or more, the Chinese banded together in short-lived villages throughout themining region or occupied camps deserted by white miners. The structures of Chinesemining camps consisted of everything from rock shelters to dugouts to log cabins to canvas

tents. Whatever the structure, they functioned largely as residential units for an almost

exclusively male population. Their use by the Chinese is easy to identify today by theoccurrences of Chinese ceramics, earthenware, opium tins and pipes, etc. Further, while the

Chinese camps have physically disappeared, another aspect of Chinese settlement oftensurvivedplace names such as China Camp, China Diggings, Chinese Camp, and China

Bar.38

While the Chinese founded a few exclusively Chinese towns like the Lava Beds, Hong Kong,

and Peking Point, their larger settlements usually took the form of an enclave (Chinatown)within a larger white mining community. Some towns restricted the Chinese by ordinance to

a certain section of town; other camps achieved the same result by accepted practice. Thissegregation was not completely forced. It provided a means for the Chinese to retain theirculture and social institutions. During the early years, nearly all the inhabitants of mining

town Chinatowns were young males; very few, except for a handful of merchants and

professionals claimed any personal wealth or real estate. Chinese families and children wererare. Most of the few women were apparently prostitutes. Basically, the population of

Chinatown mirrored the population of the larger town of which it was a part. Typically theChinese leased buildings in the cheapest and roughest blocks, and there, surrounded by whitesaloons and brothels, they established their own stores, stables, blacksmith shops, laundries,

hotels, pawn shops, and other structures.39


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Figure 32: This view of Bridge Street, Helena,Montana, displays the typical architecture of an early

mining town. (Photograph courtesy of the MontanaHistorical Society)

The majority of the Chinese quarters

display a similar pattern: rows ofattached, narrow, one andone-and-a-half story structures with

forty-five degree-pitch roofs. Thesiding is often of vertical boards and

the roof is usually covered with

wood shingles or shakes. Sometwo-story buildings might have arail-enclosed balcony across the

front elevation. In contrast to theoften similar Euro-American

structures, few of them have falsefronts or large windows. Usually a

few of the larger structures were ofbrick or adobe. Reflecting the

cultural and physical environment of the American West, the structures typically bore little

resemblance to those of South China. The Chinese showed great resourcefulness andingenuity in their adaptive re-use of Euro-American structures and in their employment ofavailable construction materials. Though subtle, the camps and Chinatowns did show the

culture of their inhabitants' homeland in some ways, including the use of geomancy

(feng-shui) and rammed earth (hang-t'u) construction.40

The impermanence and instability of the mining frontier is well known. The discovery ofgold or silver brought a rush of people, and towns and cities appeared almost overnight.They often disappeared almost as quickly when the mines were exhausted. The West is full

of ghost towns of the mining era. As early as 1869, one observer described half the mining

towns of California as wholly deserted and the rest, with few exceptions, showed evidence

of decay. Between 1848 and 1860, some five hundred mining settlements, mostly placer,developed in California. With time, more than 50 percent of these settlements completely

disappeared. Of the rest, most survive in name only. Only a small proportion remain viablecommunities. Even those towns with enough importance to gain the status of a county seat

often proved short-lived. The thirteen counties of the California goldfields had a total of

thirty-two different county seats. Only twelve of these communities lasted long enough as

towns to become incorporated.41

Outside California, the pattern repeated itself over and over. Marysville, founded in the mid1870s, was one of the great gold-producing centers in Montana. Just the major mineproduced fifty million dollars. In the 1880s and 90s Marysville had a population of between

two thousand and three thousand. The town contained several streets and a substantial

business district with stone and brick buildings. Marysville even had its own newspaper. Bythe early 1900s, however, the town had lost most of its population. Today, a number ofbuildings still stand and a small population remains but, for all intents and purposes,

Marysville is a ghost town.42

An even better example is Rawhide, Nevada. The discovery of silver here in 1906 brought a

rush of eight thousand to ten thousand people. Total production was over a million and a

half dollars. In 1908, a fire destroyed thirty-seven buildings and caused one-half to


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three-quarters of a million dollars' worth of damage. The town was never completely rebuiltand after the fire it quickly declined. Today, nothing remains but a few foundations and the

outlines of its once-busy streets.43

While many mining towns, especially the camps, physically passed out of existence, place

names, an important component of mining settlement, frequently survived. Often colorfuladjectives affixed to the somewhat distinctive terms of camp, diggings, ravine, bar, flat, run,

slide, and gulch resulted in an unusual heritage of "names on the land." In California, forinstance, the list includes Angels Camp, Poker Flat, Seven-up Ravine, Ten Cent Gulch, and

Whiskey Diggings. Without the distinct nomenclature, but equally colorful are BogusThunder, Rough and Ready, Timbuctoo, You Bet, Port Wine, Fiddletown, Red Dog,

Yankee Jim's and Hardscrabble.44

MINING LANDSCAPES

Today, landscapes are probably the most obvious legacies of mining. The traditional

methods left the least perceivable imprint on the land. These small-scale operationsexcavated only a few feet and accounted for the removal of relatively small amounts of

surface material. Panning removed one-half to one cubic yard of material per day, rockingone to two cubic yards per day, tomming three to four cubic yards per day, and sluicingseven to eight cubic yards per day. The bulk of the material extracted in the traditional

mining operations eventually ended up only a short distance away, often only a few feet.45

The small-scale nature of the traditional operations and their widely scattered locations often

make recognition of their landscapes difficult. Characteristically, however, such areas have a

shallow hummocky appearance. Small, round piles of rock and gravel are usually scatteredabout and short, shallow trenches or cuts characteristically mark the adjacent hillsides. Thetraditional methods achieved widespread employment throughout the West. Yet, today,

areas displaying the effects of these methods occupy a relatively limited area. As the initial

forms of mining in most areas, subsequent mining often eradicated all traces of traditionalmethods. Other times, later cultural activities destroyed all evidence of these mining

operations. Vegetation often obscures these areas and makes it difficult to ascertain theextent of former mining. Today, the best examples of areas worked by the minor methodsoccur along the upper ends of the smaller streams and along adjacent side ravines and

gulches.46

Of the hand methods, sluicing resulted in the greatest changes to the landscape. Low parallel

lines of gravels and cobble often mark areas worked by sluicing and noticeable trenches line

the adjacent hillsides. In some areas, in fact, sluicing stripped the soil to bedrock. The finer

debris from sluicing often accumulated in circular or elongated rises up to five feet high andthree or more feet long. The former location of sluices is often marked by lines of large

rocks thrown out of them by the miners, with the larger ones marking the head of the sluice.Occasionally the location where the concentrates were panned out is obvious as a slight rise.

Today, many of the areas mined by sluicing in the last century still lack a complete

vegetation cover. Most of these areas, however, contain notable evidence of revegetation.While the traditional methods typically had a limited and imperceptible impact on the land,their use in an area is sometimes revealed by place names. Rocker Gulch near Idaho City,

Idaho, for example, was named for the miner's rocker or cradled. 47


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Characteristically, the traditional methods served to work the gravels removed by drifting.

As a result, the surface evidence of drifting approximates those of the traditional methods.Drift landscapes occur scattered throughout the West. Drifting, however, reached itsgreatest development in the tertiary gravels of California and here the greatest evidence

survives today. Table Mountain alone contained a total of forty thousand feet of tunnels.Drift mines literally pockmark some localities. The Jackass Hill and Campo Seco-Stent

region contain hundreds of "coyote holes." Outside California, drifting largely took place on

a small scale in recent gravels. However, it still left noticeable evidence. In the Clear Creekdistrict of Colorado, for instance, nearly every wide section in the valley of South Clear

Creek south of Idaho Springs for some seven miles contains evidence of drift mining.48

As a result of hydraulicking, both the area of land affected and the degree of alterationchanged dramatically. Even early hydraulicking removed upwards of fifty to one-hundred

cubic yards of material daily. The total amount of material excavated by hydraulic mining

just in the Sierra Nevada of California was eight times that removed in the construction ofthe Panama Canal. Not surprisingly, hydraulic mining created huge amounts of tailings whichwere piled nearby or dumped into adjacent streams and resulted in extensive aggradation.

Graphs of low-water records of the Yuba River at Marysville and the Sacramento River atSacramento for 1849-1913 reveal the general trend of the deposition of mining debris.Figures show that during these years the bed of the Yuba rose about 0.33 foot per year and

the Sacramento 0.25 foot per year. The streets of Marysville, once twenty to twenty-five

feet above the bed of the Yuba, by 1879 were below it and the town experienced some

devastating floods when levees intended to confine the mining debris gave way.49

Throughout much of the American West, the vegetation of many river valleys remainedlargely unchanged until the advent of mining. Placer mining, however, typically wasconcentrated in these valleys and resulted in very noticeable changes. These changes began

with the first mining operations. The small-scale forms of mining generally employed during

the initial period of mining characteristically resulted in the alteration of relatively smallareas. As the scale of mining increased, a corresponding increase occurred in the area of

vegetation altered. Many contemporary photographs indicate the almost wholesale

destruction of vegetation that accompanied hydraulic mining.50

Compared to the traditional methods, the revegetation of areas where hydraulickingconstituted the chief form of mining took notably longer. Hydraulic mining removed soil to

greater depths, commonly to bedrock, over large areas, and left steep slopes.Characteristically, revegetation occurred most rapidly in the bottom of the pits left by

hydraulicking. In California, most hydraulic mining ended in the middle 1880s. By the turn ofthe century, vegetation in some of these pits already almost equalled the adjacent forestwhich remained untouched. The bottom of some hydraulic mines, like the Le Du, near North

Bloomfield, California, however, remain only slightly revegetated to the present. The Le Du

mine operated from 1857 to 1915. Revegetation occurs least quickly on the slopes of thehydraulic pits. Hydraulicking often produced nearly vertical slopes that greatly impeded any

revegetation. Subsequent erosion usually reduced these slopes, but some even to this daycontain little or no vegetation. Others, however, show evidence of revegetation less thanfifty years after mining ceased. The Gold Hill Mine near Idaho City, Idaho, operated

between the 1860s and 1930s. Within fifty years after the end of mining, vegetation covered

much of the floor of the hydraulic pit of the Gold Hill Mine. Even the steep slopes of the pit


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showed evidence of re-vegetation.51

Large-scale hydraulicking left huge amphitheater-like pits in the side of hills. Some reached

such proportions that they resembled small canyons. The Malakoff Diggings of California soimpressed a German visitor in the 1880s that he described it as a "barren amphitheater, so

vast that it could contain a whole settlement and so deep that a high church steeple couldhardly reach to the ledge." At the Malakoff Diggings, hydraulic mining removed an

estimated 41,000,000 cubic yards of material and left a canyon over a mile long and up to350 feet deep. The mine utilized three nozzles and 30,500,000 gallons of water, twice as

much as the entire city of San Francisco. It had over 150 miles of ditches, dams, andassociated reservoirs to supply its gigantic operations. This impressive legacy of hydraulicmining is now a California State Park. Dozens of similar mines operated in California during

the height of hydraulic mining.52

Commonly, hydraulicking left broad valleys and adjacent hill slopes furrowed in every

direction by cuts, often to bedrock. Sometimes only thin partitions of ground separate the

numerous cuts. Other times only "curious monuments of gravel and rock dot the scene."Hydraulic mining so altered some river valleys that a reconstruction of their original

appearance seems impossible. Hydraulic mining commonly cut the land into an intricatepattern of gullies, ravines, and gravel monuments. Such areas like those near Breckenridge,

Colorado, or Tyler, California resemble a badlands.53

Often hydraulicking completely removed the soil and left exposed large areas of bedrock. At

Columbia, California, it exposed areas of bedrock and left pillars of limestone, some ofwhich are ten feet high and produced landscapes so different from the original "as to be

unrecognizable to the miner of 49-50." A landscape that almost resembled a badlands with"many great masses of white limestone in bizarre shapes . . . the earth, torn up everywhere,resembles a battlefield of the antediluvian giants and monsters." Hydraulic mining often cut

hill slopes back into almost vertical cliffs. They are often seventy-five to one hundred feet

high and sometimes extend for several miles. Those found in the Boise Basin of Idaho areespecially impressive. Narrow cuts often mark the entire length of such cliffs. Some cutsconsist of only short, narrow gashes. Others lead into wide, open amphitheaters surrounded

by high banks. Large boulders removed from the sluices and stacked in the course of mining

typically litter the surrounding surface.54

The significant changes in the land surface represented but a portion of the total impact of

mining on the environment. Its effect on hydrology proved equally if not more important. Allforms of placer mining required water, and diversion of water for mining purposes occurred

early in the development of most Western mining districts. Initially, short inexpensive ditches

that conveyed water to a limited area proved adequate. Hydraulic mining, however, requiredhuge amounts of water and an extensive system of water facilities developed to meet this

demand. Huge reservoirs and thousands of miles of canals, ditches, and flumes were built to

supply water for the hydraulic mines. By 1882, California alone contained a total of sixthousand miles of main ditches, another one thousand miles of subsidiary lines, and an

unknown length of small distributors.55

Whenever possible, the mining ditches consisted of unlined earth cuts. Invariably, however,especially the larger ditches often contained several miles lined with timber or rock. Often,

too, the terrain required the construction of flumes or the excavation of canals through


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Figure 33: Gold dredging landscape near Idaho City,

Idaho. Perhaps the most obvious and distinctive of allthe landscapes produced by ruining is that which

resulted from dredging. (Photograph by Randall

Robe)

series of steep, more or less parallel gravel ridges up to fifty feet and more in a height.Dredging resulted in the formation of many lakes and ponds. Floating dredges required the

construction of ponds to enable their operation. Within the rough dissected terrain createdby dredging, water often collected between the ridges to form the other small lakes and

ponds. Sediment practically fills some of the lakes and ponds created by earlier dredging.60

Today, dredge areas are scattered throughout the West. Especially notable dredge

landscapes, covering as much as twenty-five square miles, extend along the Feather, Yuba,American, and Tuolumne Rivers in California. In the Folsom district on the American River,

dredging left over one billion cubic yards of tailings that cover an area ten miles long and up

to seven miles wide. The immensity of such areas is best displayed on aerial photos. 61

Often dredged areas contain remainsof mining equipment. Thedismantling and removing of a

dredge after the completion of

mining often proved costly. As aresult, many mining companies

simply stripped the dredge of itsmachinery and abandoned its hulland other structures. Even some

remains of the Fielding Graves, the

first successful gold dredge in theU.S., still survive along GrasshopperCreek just downstream from the

ghost town of Bannack, Montana.Throughout the West, remains of

many dredges, in various stages of

decay, still exist. In almost every

major placer area of the West, infact, some trace of the dredge

remains and in a few places a complete dredge survives. The one at Bonanza, Idaho, looks

like it's still in usable shape.62

Mining used great quantities of lumber for construction purposes. The lode mines required

great amounts of timber to support the miles of tunnels, shafts, edits, and passageways. TheTerritorial Enterprise in 1862 noted "an immense pile of timbers" for this purpose at theOphir Mine. "The pile at present contains about 4,000 sticks, about 12 inches square, each

stick containing some 250 feet, board measures. Two thousand more of these timbers will

soon be brought over from Washoe Valley, which will give in board measure about1,500,000 feet." This paper claimed that the Ophir Mine alone contained more timber within

its subterranean depths than all the buildings in Virginia City.63

Besides lumber for mine props, railway ties, mine buildings and the like, lode miningconsumed quantities of timber to fuel mining machinery, stamp mills, and smelters. Oak,

juniper, pinyon, and mountain mahogany were commonly utilized as fuel or manufacturedinto charcoal. In many parts of the West, the needs of mining soon exhausted the local

supplies of fuel wood. On the Comstock of Nevada, for example, the supply of wood seldom

met the demand. The pinyon and juniper of the nearby ravines and hills were removed in an


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ever-expanding circle. To satisfy the Comstock's demand for wood, gigantic drives of

lumber and cordwood up to four miles or more long took place on the Carson River eachspring. More than 150,000 cords of wood were floated down the Carson in a typical season.It has been estimated that over a thirty-year period, the Comstock lode consumed eight

hundred million feet of lumber enough to build fifty thousand ranch-type houses, each

with two baths and a double garage.64

Unlike the Comstock, the fuel resources of central Nevada consisted largely of local suppliesof pinyon and juniper. Smelting a ton of ore required from twenty-five to thirty-five bushelsof charcoal. The mills at Eureka consumed as much as 1.25 million bushels of charcoal ayear. From four thousand to five thousand acres of woodland had to be cut annually to

supply the Eureka mills this much charcoal. By 1874, the surrounding mountain slopes weredenuded of pinyon and juniper for a radius of twenty miles. Operations north of the

pinyon-juniper distribution in the Great Basin had to resort to drastic measures to obtainenergy. In the Tuscarora district, for example, quite a trade developed in gathering

sagebrush to run the furnaces and hoists, and the surrounding area was soon denuded ofsage. The fast-burning sagebrush produced a long hot flame which built steam faster than

other available types of fuel. A stamp mill or hoisting works powered by sagebrush smoked

like a miniature Vesuvius and covered the surrounding area with ashes.65

In some mining districts, wood was burned under the boilers of the steam engines at virtually

every step in mining the ore and processing it into gold or silver. Nearly every photograph ofthe mines of some districts shows large stacks of cordwood near the pumping plant andhoisting works. Bahre and Hutchinson estimate that in the period 1879-1886, the stamp mills

of the Tombstone district consumed nearly fifty thousand cords of fuel wood.66

Lode mines, scattered over the bedrock hills, ridges and mountain slopes, usually cover less

than five acres. Since lode mining occurred underground, there is often little surface

evidence. The tunnels, edits, shafts, etc., are still evident, though many are caved in andpartially filled with debris and/or water. Less conspicuous are the many small, shallowprospect holes which are often obscured by vegetation. Sometimes associated features, like

tramways, tanks, or narrow-gauge railroads or their ruins, survive. Generally few of the minebuildings and little surface equipment remains. Usually they have been purposely removed or

have suffered the ravages of time and man. Occasionally, headworks, tipples, loading chutes,

etc., have survived. Commonly, they consist of a wooden framework covered with sheets ofcorrugated iron. Rarely, some rusting mining machinery or other surface equipment stillstands.

Undoubtedly, the most characteristic feature of lode landscapes is the waste pile or minedump at or near the mine. These brown yellow dumps at or below the mine entrance are very

conspicuous. Parts of the West are literally dotted with piles of tailings. They range in size

from a few cubic yards to the immense tailings pile at Carson Hill, California, which containssome three million tons of mining waste. If consolidated, the waste and low grade ore dumps

in Leadville, Colorado, would cover at least two square miles; the mill tailings and slag

heaps would cover yet another square mile.67

Mine dumps are composed mostly of clay, finely comminuted metallic minerals, and siliceousfragments of various sizes and shapes. They are generally coherent, as indicated by a

tendency to stand in nearly vertical surfaces where they have been eroded and they are


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Board concluded that as many as 180 deserted minesspread across more than half the

counties in the statecould be polluting water supplies with acid waste and toxic metals.71

After milling, the concentrates were smelted to recover the metals in metallic form. Wastefrom the smelters also accumulated in enormous dumps known as slag. It generally is very

fine-grained, black, and extremely heavy. During the later periods of lode mining, the millingof huge volumes of low grade ore created large amounts of tailings and slimes that had to be

disposed of. At first, the tailings were simply dumped into nearby streams. Eventually,however, this practice became illegal. As a result, the mills constructed "tailing ponds" to

hold the debris. These ponds, in varying stages of fill, are still obvious in many parts of theWest.

The manner of dumping waste from the mines increased the possibility of flood in someareas by altering the channel and floodplain. In June 1884, a flood on South Clear Creek,

Colorado, eroded parts of the Equator and Marshall dumps. The sediment lodged

temporarily in the channel downstream from Silverdale and caused the flooding of parts ofGeorgetown. Subsequently, a short tunnel was cut through the outcrop south of theMarshall tunnel to divert Leavenworth Creek away from the Marshall dump and prevent a

reoccurrence. Leavenworth Creek still flows through this tunnel for a short distance.72

Eventually a problem for all lode mines was water. This was especially true on the Comstock

of Nevada where water was encountered at depths of only fifty feet. Pumps and drainage

tunnels only partly solved the problem. As a result, Adolph Sutro began construction of atunnel nearly four miles long to solve the drainage problem permanently. In 1865 thelegislature granted him a fifty-year franchise to construct the tunnel, wide enough for a

double railroad track and more than three miles long. Sutro estimated the cost ofconstruction at three million dollars and set about raising the money, which he finallyobtained from British sources. The Sutro Tunnel was to not only provide drainage and

ventilation but also make the transportation of the ore to the mills easier. The tunnel, one of

the great engineering feats of the nineteenth century, took seven years and over two milliondollars to construct. It was completed too late, however, for by that time the Comstock

mines were failing. In 1879 Sutro resigned as superintendent of the Sutro Tunnel Companyand within a year disposed of his stock before its value collapsed. Similar tunnels wereconstructed throughout the West. Many of them, including the Sutro Tunnel, are still in

existence.73

CONCLUSION

The history of mining in the West is one of changing technology, and each successiveimprovement brought with it a greater destruction of the land. Despite the increasing

destructive effects of mining, most concern that was expressed was economic in nature.Generally, mining was vehemently opposed only when it conflicted with other economicuses. For the most part, it was not until the twentieth century that a concern for the

environment itself was expressed and often it was limited in extent and effect.

Each distinct type of mining exhibited that distinctiveness in its alteration of the natural

landscape, and each method produced its own unique landscape. At the same time, theinherent characteristics of each method limited the landscape it produced to certain localities.The simple methods displayed a rather broad geographic range, while the large-scale, more

complex forms proved rather restrictive. The latter, however, exerted a greater and more


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permanent impact on the land.

Certainly, few other economic activities have had such a tremendous impact on the land asmining. In the process of altering the natural landscape, mining created a distinct cultural

one. While time often brought the deterioration of this cultural landscape, seldom did itcompletely eliminate all traces. As the initial phase of occupance in much of the West,

mining initiated patterns that continue to the present and left many elements that remain partof the cultural landscape of today.

History tells us that each improvement in mining technology brought with it a greater impact

on the land. It is, therefore, not surprising that many environmentalists and conservationistsview with great alarm the recent development of a high-tech, large-scale gold-miningtechnique known as heap leaching. At the same time, they have called for the repeal or

modification of the General Mining Law of 1872, which guarantees the right to establish

mineral claims on Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land where there is areasonable chance the claim will pay. Furthermore, the 1872 law provides for the outrightsale of public lands if minerals that can be mined at a profit are discovered. The

long-established price on these patented land is $2.50 an acre for placer mines, and $5.00 an

acre for lode mines. The abuses of the law are legendary.74

The peak of gold and silver mining in the West is long past. Despite the passage of time, the

imprint of mining remains visible in the present landscape. It is difficult to travel throughmost parts of the West without seeing evidence of the mining era. From abandoned mines to

deserted towns, the West is full of reminders of this period. Among the most prominent ofthese remnants are the various landscapes created by mining.

ENDNOTES

1. Randall Rohe, "Gold and Silver Mining In the American West: An Environmental

History," NCGE/GPN Slide Set (Lincoln: Great Plains National, 1990), 1-2.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid., 2.

4. Randall Rohe, "Origins and Diffusion of Traditional Placer Mining in the West,"MaterialCulture 18 (Fall 1986): 128-131.

5. Rohe, "Origins and Diffusion," 134-138.

6. Ibid., 140; and California State Mining Bureau, Eleventh Annual Report of State

Mineralogist(San Francisco, 1893), 440-441.

7. Rohe, "Origins and Diffusion," 146-147, 149; and William B. Clarke, Gold Districts Of

California, California Division of Mines and Geology, Bulletin No. 193 (San Francisco,1970), 67.

8. Randall Rohe, "Hydraulicking in the American West: The Development and Diffusion of a

Mining Technique,"Montana, The Magazine of Western History 35 (Spring 1985): 19; and

Randall Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes of the West," California Geology 37 (October1984): 225, 227.


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9. Randall E. Rohe, "Gold Dredging in the American West: Origin and Diffusion, "ThePacific Historian 28 (Summer 1984): 5-6; and Clark Spence, The Conrey Placer Mining

Company (Helena: Montana Historical Society Press, 1989), 7.

10. Rohe, "Gold Dredging," 8-9; and Spence, 10-12; and Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes,"228.

11. Rodman, Paul, California Gold, The Beginning of Mining in the Far West(Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1967), 132; and Spence, 5.

12. Rohe, "Gold and Silver Mining," 11; and Roger E. Kelly and Marsha C. G. Kelly,"Arrastras: Unique Western Historic Milling Sites,"Historical Archaeology 17 (1983): 87,90.

13. Rohe, "Gold and Silver Mining," 11; Paul, California Gold, 133-137.

14. See the diagram in William Carter, Ghost Towns in the West(Menlo Park: Lane

Magazine and Book Company, 1971), 126-127; and for more detail see Rodman Paul,

Mining Frontiers of the Far West 1848-1880 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston,1963), 32-33, 65-67, 98-104, 119-120, 122-124.

15. Randall Rohe, "Goldrush Migrations and Goldfield Populations in the American West1848-1888," The Geographical Bulletin 28 (May 1986): 5-6.

16. Ibid., 12.

17. Ibid., 10-12; and Ralph Mann,After the Gold Rush: Society In Grass Valley and NevadaCity, California, 1849-1870 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1982), 224.

18. Rohe, "Goldrush Migrations and Goldfield Populations," 12.

19. Ibid., 9-10; and Randall Rohe, "The Geography and Material Culture of the Western

Mining Town,"Material Culture 16 (Fall 1984): 112.

20. Randall Rohe, "After the Gold Rush: Chinese Mining in the Far West, 1850-1890,"

Montana, The Magazine of Western History 32 (Autumn 1982): 2.

21. Ibid., 4, 6, 18.

22. Rohe, "Goldrush Migrations and Goldfield Population," 20-22.

23. George R. Stewart, The California Trail (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), 320; andThomas Morley, "The Independence Road to Fort Laramie: By Aerial Photographs," PlainsAnthropologist6 (1961): 242-251.

24. Randall Rohe, "Feeding The Mines: The Development of Supply Centers for theGoldfields,"Annals of Wyoming 57 (Spring 1985): 52.

25. Duane A. Smith, Colorado Mining (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press,

1977), 56-57, 60, 133.


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26. Rohe, "Feeding The Mines," 56.

27. Ibid., 40-41.

28. Ibid., 42-51.

29. Paul,Mining Frontiers, 125.

30. Paul, California Gold, 72; and William Robert Kenny, "History of the Sonora MiningRegion of California 1848-1860" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1955), 377-378.

31. San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 4 January 1858.

32. Rohe, "The Geography and Material Culture of the Western Mining Town," 103; and

Randall Rohe, "The Interplay of Environment and Mining in the Far West," in The

Mountainous West: Explorations in Historical Geography, ed. Lary Dilsaver and WilliamWyckoff (Omaha: University of Nebraska Press, forthcoming); and Rohe, "Man and the

Land: Mining's Impact In The Far West,"Arizona and the West28 (Winter 1986): 302-304.

33. Rohe, "The Geography and Material Culture of the Western Mining Town," 108-110.

34. Ibid., 102.

35. Ibid., 104, 107.

36. Ibid., 107.

37. Ibid., 104, 105, 107.

38. Randall Rohe, "Chinese Camps and Chinatowns: Chinese Mining Settlements in the Far

West," unpublished manuscript (1993), no pagination.

39. Ibid.

40. Randall Rohe, "Chinese in the Goldfields of the West 1848-1900," unpublished paperpresented at the Annual Meeting of the National Council for Geographic Education,

Hershey, PA, 10-14 October, 1989, 15.

41. Rohe, "The Geography and Material Culture of the Western Mining Town," 41.

42. Rohe, "Gold and Silver Mining in the West," 13.

43. Carter, Ghost Towns, 96-97; and A. H. Koschmann and M.H. Bergendahl, "PrincipalGold-Producing Districts of the United States," U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper610 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1968), 191; and Stanley W.

Paher,Nevada Ghost Towns and Mining Camps (Berkeley: Howell-North, 1970), 456-461.

44. Rohe, "The Geography and Material Culture of the Western Mining," 114-115.

45. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 225; and Rohe "Man and the Land," 314-315.

46. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 225; and Rohe, "Man and the Land," 315.


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47. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 225; and Rohe, "Origins and Diffusion," 151.

48. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 225; and Rohe, "Origins and Diffusion," 151-152.

49. Randall Rohe, "Man as a Geomorphic Agent: Hydraulic Mining in the American West,"The Pacific Historian 27 (Spring 1983): 10-11; and Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 227.

50. Rohe, "Man and the Land," 301-303.

51. Ibid., 308-309; and Rohe, "Gold and Silver Mining," 7.

52. Rohe, "Man and the Land," 316-318;Dutch Flat Forum, 19 July 1877; and Robert L.Kelley, "Forgotten Giant: The Hydraulic Gold Mining Industry in California," PacificHistorical Review 23 (November 1954): 349.

53. Rohe, "Man As a Geomorphic Agent," 7.

54. Ibid., 6-7.

55. Ibid., 8.

56. Ibid., 8; and Frederick Hall, "Hydroelectric Power Systems of California and Their

Extensions into Oregon and Nevada, " U.S. Geological Survey Water Supply Paper, No.493, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1923), 28-29, 117, 206, 208-209, 214-215,220, 286, 307; and Charles M. Coleman, P. G. and E. of California: The Centennial Storyof Pacific Gas and Electric Company, 1852-1952 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1952), 101,

405-406, 438; and W. B. Lardner and M. J. Brock, History of Placer and Nevada Counties,

California (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1924), 162, 180, 282.

57. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 228; and Rohe, "Man and the Land," 320-321.

58. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes, " 228.

59. Rohe, "Gold and Silver Mining," 9; and Rohe, "Man and the Land," 309.

60. Clark, 62-63; and U.S. Geological Survey,Browns Valley California Quadrangle

(1:24,000), 1949.

61. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 228.

62. Ibid., 228-229.

63. Rohe, "Man and the Land", 305.

64. Ibid., 305-307

65. Ibid., 307.

66. Ibid., 307-308.

67. Rohe, "Gold Mining Landscapes," 229; and Rohe, "Gold and Silver Mining," 10; andRohe, "Man and the Land," 323-324.


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